
Class _____ 

Book..: ___ 

GopightN? 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



The 



Function of Teaching in 
Christianity 



By 

CHARLES B. WILLIAMS, Ph. D. 

Professor of New Testament Greek and New 

Testament Theology, Southwestern 

Baptist Theological Seminary, 

Fort Worth, Texas. 



Price $1.00, Postpaid. 



Sunday School Board 

Southern Baptist Convention 

Nashville, Tenn. 






Copyright 1912 

By Sunday School Board 

Southern Baptist Convention. 

(2) 



CC!.A316841 



CONTENTS 



Page 
Preface 5 

Part I — New Testament Facts on Teaching in the 

Christian Religion 9 

Chapter I — The Prominence of the School Idea in 

the Christian Religion 11 

Chapter II — Jesus as a Teacher 24 

Chapter III — The Twelve Apostles as Teachers. . 40 

Chapter IV — Paul as a Teacher 46 

Chapter V — Other Teachers in the New Testament 61 

Part II — Modern Christian Teachers. 75 

Chapter VI — Parents as Christian Teachers 77 

Chapter VII — The Pastor as a Teacher . 91 

Chapter VIII — The Sunday School Teacher as a 

Christian Teacher 100 

Chapter IX — Christian Teachers in Literary 

Schools .. .; 113 

Chapter X — Theological Teachers 129 

Part III — The Function of Christian Teachers.. 143 
Chapter XI — Teaching Moral and Spiritual 

Truths 145 

Chapter XII — Directing the Religious Thinking 

of the World 166 

Chapter XIII — Winning the Young to Christ 181 

Chapter XIV — Training of Church Members in 

Christian Living 194 

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4 Contents 

Chapter XV — The Betterment of Social Conditions 210 
Chapter XVI — The Christian Teacher's Contribu- 
tion to the Evangelization of the World 227 

Appendix — 

I — The Noun Teacher as Applied to Jesus 253 

II — The Facts in the New Testament as to Paul 

the Teacher 256 

III — References in New Testament to Other 

Teachers 257 

IV— "Preach," "Preacher" 259 



PREFACE 

In the following pages it is our purpose to set 
forth the prominence and function of teaching in 
the Christian religion. We attempt to show how 
Jesus and the New Testaznent writers think of 
Christianity as a school — a school of thought and 
of action. Jesus is the great teacher. All who 
become Christians are pupils. Jesus teaches. 
Men learn of Him, are saved, and enter the larger 
t life of service to help save the world. 

But Jesus could not remain in person to teach 
all men in all nations and in all generations. So 
He trained the early apostles and called Paul to 
become His representatives in teaching — even to 
unfold and elaborate some principles that He 
taught only partially. As Christianity became 
better organized in the local churches, the func- 
tion of teaching seems to have become concen- 
trated in a class. The early bishops were like- 
wise expected to be teachers. 

The book is divided into three parts. Part I 
gives in detail the facts from the New Testament 
about the school idea in Christianity; concerning 
Jesus the world teacher; the twelve apostles as 
teachers; Paul and other teachers; the bishops 
as teachers. 

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6 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

Part II considers the classes of modern Chris- 
tian teachers. Fathers and mothers are the first 
to teach the child in his most plastic period. 
The home is the school in which should be learned 
the first lessons of Christianity. 

The Sunday School teacher carries on the worfc 
begun by Christian parents. The pastor also 
supplements the teaching of the Sunday School 
teacher. 

Then comes the regular day school teachers in 
elementary schools, high schools, colleges, univer- 
sities, and seminaries. If Christianity is the 
world's best religion and the world needs it, all 
day school teachers should be Christians and 
teach from the Christian point of view. 

In Part III we set forth the specific functions 
of Christian teachers. They are to teach the 
world religious and ethical truth, and thus bring 
men to know God in Jesus Christ. They are to 
direct in the world's religious thinking; lead the 
young to Christ as Saviour and Lord ; train Chris- 
tians in the art of living the Christ life of serv- 
ice and sacrifice; to ameliorate the conditions of 
modern society; yea, to evangelize the whole 
world. 

We trust that we are not immodest in believ- 
ing that in this book we are setting forth some 
facts on the function of Christian teaching 
hitherto unpublished; in hoping that this book 
may, in some limited way, help to give proper 
emphasis to the teaching side of Christianity ; 



Preface 7 

that it may help busy pastors aiid regular teach- 
ers in the various kinds of schools to feel the 
significance of teaching as representatives of 
Jesus Christ; that it may prove to be an impetus 
to the establishment of special institutes, as well 
as regular chairs in colleges, universities, and 
seminaries, for the training of religious teachers. 
As to bibliography, there is no literature deal- 
ing directly with our subject. But we have ap- 
pended to most chapters a list of helpful, sug- 
gestive books. We do not endorse all the theo- 
logical and ethical teachings of the literature 
cited, but most of these books will prove helpful 
by stimulating thought concerning their several 
subjects. 



PART I 

New Testament Facts on Teaching in the 
Christian Religion 

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CHAPTERS 

The Prominence op the School Idea in the 
Christian Keligion 

There are various figures of speech used by dif- 
ferent New Testament writers in describing the 
Christian life. It is called "running a race" 
(Heb. 12: 1). It is compared to a military cam- 
paign many times. This idea is specially promi- 
nent in Paul's writings. See Gal. 5 : 17-24 and 
Eph. 6: 10-20. In this sense Christianity is a 
campaign against sin and the kingdom of Satan 
for the enthronement of righteousness in the life 
of the individual and of society. 

The Christian life is also compared to a con 
test in the Grecian games. See 1 Cor. 9: 24-27. 
As the Grecian athlete entered the contest to ob- 
tain the perishable wreath of fame, so the Chris- 
tian enters the spiritual contest, with hope and 
assurance, to obtain the incorruptible crown. 
That he may successfully compete in the spiritual 
athletics he must "buffet" (beat till blue under 
the eyes) "his body and bring it into subjection.' 1 
In this sense Christianity may be called a spir- 
itual gymnasium, where the followers of Christ 
practise the principles of the spiritual life illus- 
trated in the life of Jesus, and thus develop a ro- 
bust, symmetrical Christian character. 

(ID 



^unction of Teaching in Christianity 

But Christianity is also represented as a school 
in which men learn of Christ, the great teacher. 
It is not definitely said anywhere in the New Tes- 
tament that Christianity is a school, and that to 
become a follower of Christ is to matriculate in 
the school of Christianity. But is it not implied 
throughout the New Testament? Is not Jesus 
called "the teacher" (ho didaskalos) both by 
Himself, His disciples and His enemies? Forty- 
five times this title is applied to Jesus in the 
four gospels. Forty-five times the verb "teach" 
(didasko) is used by the four evangelists to de- 
scribe Jesus' conversations with individuals and 
His disciples, and His discourses to the disciples 
and the masses. 

The noun "preacher" (keernx) is never applied 
to Jesus in the four gospels. The verb "preach" 
(keerusso) is applied to his teaching eleven times 
in the Gospels — four in Matthew (but all four in 
connection with the verb "teach"), four in Mark 
(in a context in which the word "teach" does not 
occur), and three times in Luke (also in a context 
in which the verb "teach" does not occur). The 
verb "preach" is not used in the Gospel of John 
to describe Jesus' communication of truth to men. 
The verb "evangelize" (euangelisomai) , to preach 
the good tidings, is used five times in the Gospel 
of Luke to describe the proclamation of truth by 
Jesus. This verb does not occur in Matthew, 
Mark, or John, in reference to Jesus' teaching. 
This verb is used fortv times in the Acts, in the 



Prominence of the School Idea 13 

Epistles, and in the Apocalypse with reference to 
the teaching by the apostles and others, but never 
is used to refer to Jesus' work of preaching or 
teaching. 

Hence we see, from this array of lexical facts, 
that the teaching idea in the New Testament is 
more prominent than the preaching idea. This is 
the case in the teaching both of Jesus, the Twelve 
Apostles, and of Paul. Jesus is preeminently 
the teacher rather than the preacher. He is 
never called the preacher, but forty-seven times 
is called the teacher. Five times he is said to 
have "evangelized," and eleven times he is said 
to have "preached," but forty-five times he is said 
to have "taught." 

Again, Jesus calls himself the light of the 
world in the Gospel of John (9: 5). The author 
of this gospel also holds that Jesus is "the light 
which lighteth every man that cometh into the 
world" (1: 9). But light is the symbol of in- 
struction, and therefore Jesus and the apostle 
mean to say that the Messiah is the world's great 
teacher. He illumines men by the rays of truth. 
His teaching is the means whereby he illuminates 
men's minds. 

But, says some objector, does not the light 
which Jesus gives to men mean life, according to 
John 1:4? We reply, light signifies life in the 
sense of spiritual fellowship with God through 
Christ. In John 17: 3, Jesus says, in the inter- 
cessory prayer, "And this is life eternal, that they 



14 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

should know thee the only true God, and him 
whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ." 
Whatever interpretation we give this text, we 
must conclude that there is a vital relationship 
between life eternal and the knowledge of God 
and of Christ. If the "that" clause means that 
the knowledge of God and of Christ is eternal 
life, or if it means that the knowledge of God and 
of Christ is the condition of eternal life, or if it 
means that the knowledge of God is the purpose 
of eternal life (so Westcott), there is in any 
case, a vital relationship between eternal life (fel- 
lowship with God in Christ) and the knowledge 
of God through Christ. But knowledge implies a 
teacher and learners, something to be taught and 
the process of teaching. If there is knowledge, 
some one must teach. If there are learners, 
there must ordinarily be teaching. So then in 
the Johannine conception of Christ's mission and 
of eternal life we find the idea of teaching basal. 
Christianity is a school in which the knowledge 
of God is taught us and so we have life eternal. 
Christ is the teacher, his followers are the learn- 
ers, and the result is that men have eternal life. 

Again, when Jesus was about to leave the world 
he commissioned the Twelve (the nucleus of the 
church of the future) to "make disciples of all 
the nations, baptizing them into the name of the 
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit: 
teaching them to observe all things whatsoever 
I commanded you" (Matt. 28: 10, 20). Jesus 



Prominence of the School Idea 15 

gave to the Twelve a commission, and that com 
mission is that they teach the nations the truths 
of Christianity and to make the citizens of "the 
nations" "learners" of Christ and thus citizens 
of the kingdom of heaven. The verb "mdthee- 
teuo" means to "make a disciple, instruct." 1 
This verb is used only four times in the New 
Testament to refer to the process of making men 
pupils, or followers, of Christ. 2 

The apostles were to become teachers that they 
might lead others to become "learners," "pupils," 
of Christ. But this is based on the fact that they 
themselves had become the "learners" of Jesus 
in the college of his two or three years' public 
ministry. The word "disciple" (matheetees) 
means "learner, pupil," according to Thayer, as 
above. This word is used two hundred and fif- 
teen times in the Gospels to refer to the Twelve 
and others who followed Jesus — sixty-six times in 
Matthew, forty-two times in Mark, thirty-four in 
Luke, seventy- three in John. Is not this an over- 
whelming array of facts? Do they not prove 
that Jesus and others primarily thought of his 
followers as "learners, pupils?" 

Again, the word "disciple" (matheetees) is 
used twenty-eight times in the book of Acts to 
describe the followers of Jesus. The word 
"brother" (adelphos) is also used frequently in 



1 Thayer, Greek English Lexicon of the New Testa- 
ment, p. 386. 

2 Matt. 13 : 52 ; 27 : 57 ; 28 : 19, and Acts 14 : 21. 



16 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

the Gospels, but not half so many times as the 
word "disciple," but more frequently in the Acts 
and the Epistles. The word "Christian" (chris- 
tianos) is used only three times in all the New 
Testament (twice in Acts, once in 1 Peter). 
Thus we see the relation of pupil and teacher is 
most prominent in the four Gospels and in Acts 
The idea of brotherhood was emphasized more in 
the Epistles. 

But the idea of Christianity as a school is 
found in PauPs Epistles. Though the follower 
of Christ is nowhere denominated the pupil 
(matheetees) of Christ, still Christianity has its 
teachers and curriculum. The verb "teach" 
(didasko) is used by Paul, referring to himself 
or others as teaching, twelve times in his Epis- 
tles. 3 The noun "teacher" (didaskalos) is used 
by him, as referring to himself or to others in the 
early churches, six times. The term "teacher" does 
not occur often in PauPs writings, but when he 
does use it, it has a marked significance. In 1 Cor. 
12: 28, 29, and in Eph. 4: 11, he regards the 
teacher as a functionary in the early churches, 
occupying a place by the side of apostles, proph- 
ets, evangelists, and pastors. Surely the idea of 
teaching was prominent in PauPs system of 
thought. Moreover, in 2 Tim. 1 : 11, he regards 
himself as appointed by God to the office of 



3 Of course, tUis count includes the two cases in the 
Pastoral Epistles, but does not include the Epistle to the 
Hebrews. 



Prominence of tlie School Idea 17 

teaching, just as he was divinely called to be an 
apostle and preacher. His function as teacher 
was as divinely appointed as were his functions 
of apostleship and preacher. In fact, it is 
scarcely conceivable that Paul's functions as 
apostle and teacher could be separated. The 
apostleship would include the functions of teach- 
ing and preaching. 

The word "teaching," "doctrine" (didachee), 
occurs only six times in Paul. But in the two 
passages in Romans 4 he makes the w r ord "teach- 
ing' 7 express the content of his gospel. That is, 
his gospel is a teaching; Christianity itself is a 
teaching. This is Paul's view of his system of 
thought elaborated on the basis of his experience 
and under the leadership of the Holy Spirit. At 
this point we do not mean to discuss Paul as a 
teacher. This will be done in a subsequent chap- 
ter. Here we wish merely to emphasize the fact 
that Paul harmonizes with Jesus and the early 
Apostles in regarding Christianity as a school of 
religious thought. It has its teachers, learners 
and curriculum. 

Let us note the extensive use of the word 
"teaching" (didachee) throughout the New Tes- 
tament to express the Christian system of 
thought. Indeed, the word didachee is trans- 
lated "doctrine" in the Authorized Version — that 
is, those basal truths of Christianity which we 
call "doctrines" are denominated bv the New 



*6: 17; 16: 17. 



18 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

Testament writers merely "teaching." Besides 
the six occurrences of the term "teaching" in 
Paul's writings, the word occurs seven times in 
the Synoptic Gospels in reference to the message 
of Jesus. It is used three times in John's Gospel 
with reference to Jesus' message. It is used in 
Acts four times to describe the message of the 
Apostles (twice referring to that of the Twelve 
and twice to that of Paul). The word is used 
eight times in the rest of the New Testament, 
some of which passages describe the Christian 
message, or a perversion of it (as in Rev. 2: 11, 
15). The word is always used in the singular 
number, except in Heb. 13: 9, where the teach- 
ings are false. The word didachee, "teaching," 
to describe the message of Christianity, is used 
twenty-four times in the New Testament. 5 

The other word "teaching" (didaskalia) is 
uaed fifteen times in the New Testament to de- 
scribe the message of Christianity, all of which 
are in the Pastoral Epistles, 6 except one, Rom. 
12: 7. From these data we must conclude that 
in the early Christian times the idea of teaching 
was the primary conception of Christianity. Its 
message to the world was a teaching — instruction 



5 Matt. 7 : 28 ; 22 : 23 ; Mark 1 : 22, 27 ; 4 : 2 ; 11 : 18 ; 
12 : 38 ; Luke 4 : 32 ; John 7 : 10, 17, 18, 19 ; Acts. 2 :42 ; 
5: 28; 13: 12; 17: 19; Romans 6: 17; 16: 17; 1 Cor. 
14 : 6, 26 ; 2 Tim, 4:2; Titus 1:9; Heb. 6 : 2 ; 2 John 1 : 9. 

6 1 Tim. 1: 10; 4: 6, 13, 16; 5: 17; 6: 1, 3; 2 Tim. 
3 : 10, 16 ; 4 : 3 ; Titus 1 : 9 ; 2 : 1, 7, 10. 



Prominence of the School Idea 19 

given by qualified Christian teachers (or by 
Christ himself) and to be learned by men who 
were willing to accept Christ and his message. 

The word "wisdom" (sophia) occurs six times 
in Paul's writings to describe the message of the 
Gospel, or God's revelation to men in Jesus 
Christ (1 Cor. 1 : 24-30; 2: 6, 7; Eph. 1: 3, 8. 10). 
The word "mystery" (mustecrion), something 
hitherto unknown but now made known, twenty- 
one times, designates the message of Christianity 
in Paul's Epistles. 

The school idea is prominent in the New Tes- 
tament description of the practical side of Chris- 
tianity. Christianity is not merely a system of 
abstract truths, but it is a life. Yet it is a new 
life. It is a life which, even on the practical 
side, one must learn to live. No man lives the 
Christian life naturally, automatically. Like 
swimming, it must be learned. One must re- 
ceive instruction as to the effects of sin, as to 
how God loves the sinner and gave His Son to die 
for his salvation, as to how Christ "gave him- 
self up for our sins that he might deliver us out 
of this present evil world" (Gal. 1:4), how God 
freely forgives the repentant sinner and gives 
him grace through the channel of faith to begin 
and continue the living of the pure, altruistic, 
sacrificing, but joyous, trumphant life of the 
Christian. 

Let us turn to the New Testament to see how 
Jesus taught that this school idea is the chief 



20 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

idea of practical Christian living. In Matt. 11: 
28, 29, He said : "Come unto me, all ye that labor 
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 
Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I 
am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find 
rest unto your souls." 

Whatever else this passage may mean, it surely 
expresses the truth that the new life of the fol- 
lower of Jesus is a school life. He is a learner 
in the school of Christ. Christ has revealed the 
Father (v. 27) to His followers — that is, has 
taught the would-be disciple that God loves him 
and wants to save him from his sin and from the 
life of sin, and will help him to live the new life 
of love and service in imitation of Christ, our 
great exemplar. "Take my yoke upon you and 
learn of me." What else can it mean, if not that 
Jesus himself bore the yoke of service for suffer- 
ing, dying men, and so by example as well as by 
precept He teaches His followers to do the same? 
The follower of Jesus is a learner in the realm 
of living. He not only learns principles and truths 
from Christ, but from Him he learns how to live. 
From Him he gets the inspiration and power to 
live for others, as Christ did. From Him he learns 
to wear the velvet-lined yoke of love and service, 
the yoke that is easy, and to bear the burdens of 
others, which are light to him who loves God and 
his fellow-men. 

In Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) 51: 25, Wisdom 
speaks, "Put your neck under the yoke and let 



Prominence of the School Idea 21 

your soul receive instruction." In Eabbinic lit- 
erature, also, it is common to speak of the yoke 
as symbolizing the relation between the teacher 
and his pupil. Dr. Broadus 7 says, " 'Take my 
yoke upon you- is therefore only a figurative way 
of saying, 'Become my pupils (disciples), submit 
yourselves to my instruction.' " Allen, 8 in com- 
menting on this passage, says, "The Pharisees 
despised the unlearned and simple, and burden 
them with the heavy burdens of their expositions 
of the law. But I bid those who are weary of 
carrying Pharisaic loads to come to Me that they 
may be relieved. Let them take in exchange the 
yoke of allegiance to Me; let them be disciples of 
one who is a sympathetic teacher." Undoubtedly, 
then, this passage teaches that Christianity is a 
school in which Jesus is the teacher and His fol- 
lowers are students. 

But does "learn of me" signify mere theoret- 
ical learning? I think not. For Jesus clovsed the 
Sermon on the Mount with two graphic illustra- 
tions — the two house-builders — to show that we 
must "do," as well as hear, His lessons of truth. 
Yea, in that sermon He said, "Not every one that 
saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the 
kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of 
my Father who is in heaven" (Matt. 7: 21). 

"Learn of me" is not to be limited to learning 



7 Commentary on Matthew, p. 254. 

8 The International Critical Commentary, Commentary 
on Matthew, p. 124. 



22 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

from Jesus' example, but includes learning from 
His teachings. On the other hand, it must not be 
limited to His teachings, for it evidently includes 
learning of Jesus in the realm of living. 

Again, Jesus says, "Corne ye after me, and I will 
make you to become fishers of men" (Mark 1: 
17) . This also refers to the relation of the teacher 
and his pupils. The Greek philosophers, when 
teaching, often had their pupils accompany them. 
So Jesus calls these men to accompany Him as 
His pupils, and thus He will teach them and 
make them to become "fishers of men." 

Did Paul apply this relation of the teacher and 
pupil to actual Christian living? In Phil. 3: 10, 
he says, "That I may know Him, and the power 
of His resurrection." "Knowing" presupposes 
learning, and learning implies teaching. Paul re- 
gards himself as a pupil, longing perfectly to 
know Christ and the power of His resurrection. 
But is he speaking of practical or theoretical 
knowledge? The Greek verb for "know" is 
cjnonai, to know experimentally. This kind of 
knowledge signifies real living. What Paul 
wanted to know was the experimental realization, 
in his own life, of the transforming power of the 
risen Christ. 

There are many other indirect references in the 
New Testament to Christianity as a school, both 
in the realm of its message and its life. But 
these are clear and are sufficient to impress us 
that the school idea of Christianity is basal with 



Prominence of the School Idea 23 

Jesus and the Apostles. Christianity is a school 
in which men are to learn from Christ Christian 
truths and how to express these truths in the re- 
lations, affairs, and achievements of life. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

In connection with this chapter the reader will 
find it helpful to read : 

Henry Van Dyke, The School of Life. 
Shatter Mathews, The Social Gospel, Chapter 
XVII, Education. 

J. M. Frost, The School of the Church. 



24 Function of Teaching in Christianity 



CHAPTER II 

Jesus as a Teacher 

In this chapter we are not dealing with the 
pedagogical methods of Jesus. He used peda- 
gogical methods worthy of study and emulation 
by modern teachers. However, it is not the meth- 
ods of His teaching, but the fact that He was a 
teacher, a universal, ethical, religious teacher, 
which engages our attention now and on which 
we hope to throw some light from the facts of the 
New Testament. 1 

JESUS A TEACHER RATHER THAN A PREACHER 

Jesus is never in the Gospels called a preacher. 
Only eleven times is it said that He preached, 
proclaimed (keerusso) His message. Only five 
times, and that only in Luke's Gospel, is Jesus 
said to have "evangelized" (cuangelizomai) , or 
brought good tidings. So we see from these facts 
that neither Jesus Himself, nor His Disciples, nor 
enemies regarded preaching as His pecular mode 
of communicating truth to men. 

On the other hand, Jesus is often called the 
teacher. Forty-five times in the Gospels He is 



1 See Appendix I for a minute critical presentation of 
the facts. 



Jesus as a Teacher 25 

called the teacher, thirty-nine of these instances 
occurring in the Synoptic Gospels! Six times lie 
calls Himself the teacher. Twenty-three times 
His disciples, or other friendly sympathizers, like 
Nicodemus, Martha, Mary Magdalene, call Him 
the teacher. Twelve times His enemies, Phari- 
sees, Sadducees, Herodians, et al., call Him the 
teacher. From these references we see how Jesus 
was not only regarded as a teacher, but was 
deemed worthy of the title, the teacher. 

It is to be observed that the Twelve did not call 
Jesus teacher until toward the close of His life, 
according to the Synoptic references, but in John 
1 : 38, the two disciples of John the Baptist, on 
becoming the disciples of Jesus, address Him as 
Eabbi, which John tells us means teacher. There 
is no conflict. The Synoptists do not mention 
this incident at all. 

We observe further that, according to the 
Synoptists, Jesus calls Himself teacher only in 
the middle and later portions of His ministry 
(see Matt. 10: 24, parallel Luke 6: 40; Matt. 23: 
8). Nowhere in the Gospel of John, except in 
His last address (13: 14), does He refer to Him- 
self as the teacher. But it was natural for Him 
to emphasize His function of teaching and His 
authority as a teacher in those closing days of 
His ministry and life. It is also easy to see why 
the disciples, after associating with Him during 
His ministry and hearing His words of grace and 
wisdom, should, in the last months and days of 



26 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

His ministry, think of Him as preeminently 
their great teacher. 

It is remarkable that those not in sympathy 
with Jesus and His teachings called him teacher 
from the ©arliest months to the last week of His 
ministry. His message and His methods and His 
authoritative manner of address impressed the 
external world that He was in every sense of the 
term a teacher. 

Likewise, the verb "teach" is applied to Jesus 
in the Gospels forty-five times, thirty-nine in- 
stances occurring in the Synoptists. Most of 
these references to Jesus in the act of teaching 
are made by the writers themselves, though once 
the disciples (Luke 11: 1), three times Jesus 
(Matt. 26: 55; Mark 14: 49; John 18: 20), and 
seven times His enemies (see Appendix I for 
critical discussion), refer to the act of His teach- 
ing. There are many other references in the Gos- 
pels, where Jesus is teaching, but neither the title 
teacher nor the act of teaching is directly ex- 
pressed. 

From this array of facts collated from the New 
Testament we are forced to the conclusions : 

1. Jesus regarded Himself as a teacher pos- 
sessed with Divine authority. 

2. His disciples so esteemed and addressed Him. 

3. Others in sympathy with His message called 
Him teacher. 

4. The writers often allude to Jesus in the act 
of teaching. 



Jesus as a Teacher 27 

5. Even His enemies were impressed that He 
was preeminently a teacher. 

OBSERVATIONS ON JESUS AS A TEACHER. 

What kind of a teacher was Jesus? What 
light do the above passage throw on the nature 
of Jesus as a teacher? 

1. He Was an Ethico-Religious Teacher 

"Jesus as a religionist gave chief place to the 
moral and spiritual values of life." 2 Jesus was not 
a teacher of natural science. He did not teach any- 
thing positively as to the laws of nature. He 
followed the Jewish view of the world and of na- 
ture. Yet he studied seed and soil, shepherds 
and sheep, pearls and leaven, sun and mountains, 
light and salt, and the other phenomena of na- 
ture, in order to teach that God is in His world ; 
yea, in His world is working out His purposes of 
love for His creatures. His references to nature 
are only illustrative, to illustrate spiritual truth. 
Jesus was not a teacher of natural science. 

Nor was He a teacher of history. To be sure, 
He did know the history of the Jews and the his- 
tory of God's dealings with them and the nations. 
He also referred to many historical facts in the 
history of the Jews and of the world — to the 
flood, fall of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham, 
Isaac, Jacob, the wilderness experiences of Moses, 



McGee, Jesus the World Teacher, p. 121. 



28 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

etc., but He did so in order to clinch in the mem- 
ories of His hearers great religious truths. The 
historical references were used by Jesus as pegs 
on which to hang spiritual truths; the means of 
turning on and of focusing the light of certain 
spiritual truths which He wished to teach. 

Nor was Jesus a teacher of literature. He did 
not mean to give the world the results of His 
study on the questions of Hebrew literature. He 
was not concerned about the problems of Higher 
Criticism. This He deemed not a part of His 
sublime mission to earth. He did know the books 
of Hebrew literature (perhaps He did not know 
the Greek and Latin literatures), but He did not 
claim to be a Hebrew literateur, and did not re- 
gard it as His chief business to solve for the world 
the problems of Hebrew literature — problems of 
authorship, date, sources, integrity, etc. His liter- 
ary references are valuable, not because they were 
intended by Him to settle all literary problems of 
the Old Testament, but because of His keen in- 
tellectual acumen, and because they are mere in- 
cidental allusions and are not studied, formal 
arguments. 

Nor was Jesus a teacher of philosophy. It is 
doubtful that He had ever read Philo, not to 
mention Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, the philoso- 
phy of the Stoics and the Epicureans. These sys- 
tems of thought would not have appealed to Him, 
even if He had had the opportunity to study and 
master them. He did not come primarily to en- 



Jesus as a Teacher 29 

lighten the world intellectually, but spiritually 
and morally. He did not philosophize even on 
the origin of the worlds, or of religion, or of 
morality. He knew that God made the worlds, 
and taught religion and ethics as facts, the high- 
est values in God's universe, and sought to help 
men to attain the highest religion and noblest 
morality. 

Nor was Jesus primarily a theologian. He did 
not elaborate a complex system of teaching about 
God, man, sin, salvation, etc. ; in fact, there is no 
system to His teachings. He just spoke out of 
the fullness of His loving heart, as occasions of- 
fered and the needs of His disciples and the peo- 
ple suggested. He probably often repeated Him- 
self, or expressed similar teachings in slightly dif- 
ferent form on different occasions. 

Jesus was emphatically an ethico-religious 
teacher. He knew what was men's right relation 
to God and to one another. He taught the true 
relation of men to God, that of loving, trusting, 
obedient children, for the realization of which 
relationship by men He Himself was the volun- 
tary yet divinely appointed Medium. Back of 
this relation of men to God was that of^God to 
men. He loves all men as a father loves his chil- 
dren. So men should love and trust Him. Like- 
wise, Jesus emphasized the ethical side of human 
life. Men should love one another, as the Father 
loves the Son and loves men. They should forgive 
one another. They should even love their ene- 



30 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

mies. This love should express itself positively 
in deeds of help and mercy. Men should help all 
classes of their fellows — the poor, the sick, the 
despised, the outcast, any one who needs help. 
That is, Jesus was emphatically the great ethico- 
religious teacher. He taught that men could and 
should know God as their Father, and as His chil- 
dren should walk and live in the light of His 
love; that they should recognize their fellow-men 
as brothers, and as such should love and help one 
another in all the relations of life. 

2. Jesus Was a Conservative Teacher 

He had new truths to give to the world, and 
yet He was conservative in the presentation of 
His most radical teachings. For instance, His 
teaching of the fatherhood of God finds its roots 
in the Old Testament. He did break away from 
the late Judaistic view of God as a bookkeeper 
who . places all men's good deeds in the credit 
column, and all their evil deeds in the debit col- 
umn, and who rejoices at the moral failures of 
men. Though Jesus taught that God, like a 
Father, loves all men and watches sympathetic- 
ally over all their interests, yet He used a term 
(Father) found in the sacred literature of the 
Jewish religion, but gave it a deeper and broader 
and higher content. 

According to Mark 2 : 18-22, Jesus did, how- 
ever, teach that Christianity was no new patch 
to be sewed on Judaism, nor were its teachings 



Jesus as a Teacher 31 

new wine to be preserved in the wine skins of 
Judaism. In a sense, Christianity is a new re- 
ligion. And yet He did not positively condemn 
fasting (the problem which led Him to utter the 
above teaching), which was a teaching in the old 
system. If there were suitable occasions for fast- 
ing, His disciples might fast. 

Nor was Jesus an iconoclast with regard to 
Jewish ritualism. He did come to supplant it, 
and He knew that His spiritual teachings would 
overthrow the ritualistic system. Yet, He no- 
where attacked the temple worship and its cease- 
less round of animal sacrifices. He even paid 
the temple tax and called the temple His "Father's 
house," or His "Father's business." Yet He said 
to the Pharisees who believed in ceremonial un- 
cleanness that moral and spiritual uncleanness is 
the more significant. Not that which goes into a 
man, but that which comes out of his heart, defiles 
him, namely, "evil thoughts, adulteries, fornica- 
tions, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, 
deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, 
pride, foolishness." 

Other examples might be given to illustrate 
Jesus' conservatism. But what He said in Matt. 
5: 17-20 sums up His relation to the Old Testa- 
ment Scriptures. It was not His purpose to de- 
stroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them ; 
that is, to preserve their inner permanent values 
and to make them the basis of His more spiritual 
and more comprehensive teachings. Yet, He did 



32 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

condemn the Pharisaic interpretation of the law 
and the prophets and their consequent views of 
righteousness. If men enter His kingdom their 
righteousness must surpass that of the Pharisees 
(verse 20). He had new teachings, new in spirit 
and extent of application, and yet He preserved in 
His new teachings all of inner permanent value in 
the old religion. Harnack 3 says : "The bud which 
Jesus placed in the Old Jewish stalk could result 
only in the decay of Judaism and the founding of 
a new religion. . . . Not in His preaching did 
Jesus teach this, but in His person, His work, His 
sufferings, in His resurrection did His disciples 
learn it." That is, according to Harnack, Jesus 
in His teaching was undermining the old religion 
of Judaism, but not consciously. It would be 
better to say, Jesus was not designedly undermin- 
ing the Old Testament teaching, but was positively 
building upon it a superstructure of the purest 
ethical and religious teaching. 

3. Jesus Was a Fearless Teacher 

Although He was no iconoclast in religious 
teachings, yet He was fearless in the presentation 
of those marvelous spiritual realities which He 
knew the world needed. He was not afraid of the 
Scribes, whose teachings He necessarily opposed by 
teaching the spiritual nature of the kingdom, and 
that love and service are greater than external 



1 Biblical World, March, 1910, p. 148. 



Jesus as a Teacher 33 

deeds which do not necessarily express a loving 
heart. He knew that if He persisted in His 
spiritual teaching they would kill Him. But 
death did not daunt Him. Nothing could deter 
Him from teaching those truths which He knew 
the world must have or else suffer the penalty 
of spiritual and moral death. 

4. Jesus Was an Exoteric Teagher 

This term w r as originally applied to the popular 
teachings of Aristotle and the late Greek philos- 
ophers. But the public teachings of those philos- 
ophers were not so popular in matter or manner 
as were the teachings of Jesus. As hinted above, 
Jesus did not, as a rule, teach abstract truths. He 
was a practical teacher. He taught those truths 
that help to make life, moral and religious. He 
did not teach truth for the sake of its intrinsic 
beauty, but for the sake of its power in moulding 
character, conduct, and life. His "wisdom" teach- 
ings (apothegms) were practical, intended to help 
men to live, as was the wisdom literature of the 
Old Testament, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song 
of Songs, and the late wisdom literature, Wisdom 
of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus. Of course, Jesus' 
teachings are far superior to these last, but they 
belong to the same class of literature, the religio- 
practical and not the philosophical. 

Again, when we consider the style of His teach- 
ing, we see the methods of the popular teacher. 
His language is concrete. He speaks in pictures. 
—3— 



34 Function of Teaching in Christicmity 

He uses figures of speech, the simile, the metaphor, 
the apostrophe, the synecdoche, the hyperbole, etc. 
He often teaches by using examples from Old 
Testament history, Abraham, Moses, Elijah, 
Elisha, David, Solomon, and others. Perhaps the 
most characteristic method in His teaching is the 
parable. Though, according to Mark 4 : 11, 12, He 
appears to have adopted the parabolic method in 
order to veil the truth from the multitudes, yet, 
according to Mark 4: 21, 22, He says that truth, 
like a lamp, is intended to be placed, not under the 
bushel or bed, but on the lampstand to illumine 
all that may see. The parables veil the truth only 
temporarily. When the inner meaning of the 
parable was grasped, the truth shone more bril- 
liantly. The masses remembered those matchless 
stories from nature, the fields, the home, the shop, 
and the experiences of life. The parable was 
well fitted to be a vehicle of truth to the masses. 
He probably used the parable, because He was 
preeminently a popular teacher. 

5. Jesus Was an Esoteric Teacher 

This term was first applied to the secret teach- 
ings of Aristotle. Grote, however, thinks it not 
applicable to any of Aristotle's teachings, but that 
it is applicable to part of the teachings of Pythag- 
oras^ — those teachings which seem to be suitable 
only to the initiated few. 

Both in the Synoptic and Johannine gospels 
there are portions of Jesus' teachings which are 



Jesus as a Teacher 35 

peculiarly fitted only to those who are in the inner 
circle — those who accept Jesus as their Saviour, 
Lord and teacher, and are thus personally pre- 
pared to appreciate the deeper and more spiritual 
truths. According to John's Gospel (14: 21f), 
Jesus teaches that He manifests Himself in a spe- 
cial manner to those who keep His commandments, 
as He does not and cannot to the world. There 
must be an affinity between the pupils and the 
truths taught. If we would appreciate some of 
the deepest teachings of Jesus, we must think and 
live and act in the inner circle, with our heads and 
hearts close enough to Jesus to rest on His bosom, 
as did John the beloved disciple. 

But let it be noted, what might be called esoteric 
teachings at one stage of our experience cease to 
be esoteric to us, because we have advanced to a 
higher stage of Christian experience. For in- 
stance, when Jesus first definitely foretold His 
death to His disciples, this was a matter of esoteric 
teaching to them, but later on, after they had 
come to see that Christ's death was a part of the 
Divine plan and essential to the Messianic salva- 
tion, this teaching became a public teaching — that 
is, for all the people. On the day of Pentecost 
Peter preached the death of Christ as a part of 
the Divine plan. It was no longer an esoteric 
teaching, but a popular doctrine. 

We do not deal with the problem whether or 
not the Sermon on the Mount was delivered to the 
masses or to the disciples only. It is likely ex- 



36 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

oteric. Though addressed specially to the imme- 
diate disciples, it is also a general code of ethics 
(though it contains much distinctively religious 
as well as ethical teaching) for all members of the 
kingdom; yea, for all men whether or not they 
profess to be followers of Jesus. 

6. Jesus Was an Authoritative Teacher 

At the close of the Sermon on the Mount the 
evangelist says the people marveled at His teach- 
ing because He taught them as "one having 
authority, and not as the Scribes." In what sense 
was Jesus an authoritative teacher? 

(1) He did not resort to human teaching for 
endorsement, as did the Scribes. The latter were 
always quoting what this or that rabbi said. 
Jesus never quoted Hillel, Shammai, or other 
rabbis. He felt that He needed no human teach- 
er's words to back His teachings. He knew the 
Father directly, and ethical, religious truth at 
first-hand. 

(2) He was an original teacher. He had a 
personal knowledge of God, a rich experience of 
fellowship with the Father. He knew in Himself 
those great truths of religion which He pro- 
claimed. Again, He loved all men, He hated 
none, He forgave His enemies, He helped the help- 
less, healed the sick, lifted the fallen, and so in 
Himself He knew the fundamentals of ethics. 
Hence He taught the world originally, authori- 
tatively — that is, out of His own experience of 



Jesus as a Teacher 37 

love and service to others, those lofty ethical prin- 
ciples recorded in the Gospels. 

(3) He was God's appointed representative. 
He knew the Father (Luke 10 : 22) , and the Father 
had made Him His representative in making Him 
known to the world. Hence, His right to teach. 
God has given Him the right to reveal the Father 
because of His perfect knowledge of the Father. 

So out of His own personality as the Son of 
God and the Son of man, out of His experience as 
such, and as the Father's representative to men, 
Jesus taught with authority. As God's Messiah 
to set up the kingdom on earth, He felt and used 
His right to teach the truths of God and the king- 
dom. Hence, out of His lofty consciousness and 
His filial and representative relation to the 
Father, and out of His helpful, fraternal relation 
to men as the Son of man, He taught those sub- 
lime teachings of religion and ethics which have 
been the marvel of the ages. 

7. Jesus Was a Cosmopolitan Teacher 

Jesus gave no specific rules for living. He did 
not lay down a code of laws applicable for Jews, 
but not suitable for the Gentiles. He taught uni- 
versal principles, love, forgiveness, righteousness, 
service, sacrifice; principles as useful for the 
Mongolian, Malay, and Ethiopian as for the Cau- 
casian and Eed Man. Witness the golden rule of 
Matt. 7 : 12. It was good for the early Jewish 
Christians. It has been the highest ethical stand- 



38 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

ard of the civilized world for nineteen centuries. 
It is still as suitable for the relations of society in 
the twentieth century as it was in the first. Jesus 
taught for all the centuries and for all the world. 
He commanded His disciples to give His gospel to 
all the world. Though He said He was sent, in 
His personal ministry, "only to the lost sheep of 
the house of Israel/' He laid the foundations for 
future apostolic teaching and entrusted to them 
teachings that were to be observed by "disciples' 7 
in "all the nations." (Matt. 28: 18, 19.) 

In the early Christian centuries His teachings 
supplanted those of Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus and 
the Stoics, and in these last two centuries they are 
supplanting the teachings of Confucius and the 
Hindu sages. They are lifting the nations to the 
religion of the one God and to the highest moral 
living. Principal Fairbairn says: "You will get 
many a beautiful proverb in Seneca ; you will get 
many a fine ethical principle in Plato; you will 
find in Stoicism some of the most exalted precepts 
that human ethics have ever known. But mark 
you one thing: You will never discover that these 
elevated the common life of man, affected the 
course of lust, made tbe bad good, or the impure 
holy. 

"Where they failed, Christ succeeded with 
splendid, glorious success; He made out of the 
very outcasts men that became saints of God." 

Already it is true of the Occident, and in the 
near future the Orient with the Occident will be 



Jesus as a Teacher 39 

sitting at the feet of Jesus, the recognized world 
teacher. As suggested by James Eussell Lowell, 
Jesus was the world's first real democrat — that is, 
the first man really in sympathy with the people, 
the whole people, and all the peoples of earth. He 
was a world democrat. The world is fast recog- 
nizing Kim as such, and all the races and nations 
are being made one family of brothers as they 
hear and heed the universal teachings of Jesus. 
He is the world teacher, the world Saviour, and 
the world Master. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

James E. McGee, Jesus the World Teacher. 

Stalker, The Ethic of Jesus. 

Shailer Mathews, The Social and Ethical Teach- 
ings of Jesus. 

Stevens, The Teachings of Jesus. 

P. T. Forsyth, The Person and Place of Jesus 
Christ. 

Joseph Alexander Leighton, Jesus Christ and 
the Civilisation of Today. 

W. L. Walker, The Teaching of Christ in its 
Present Appeal. 

H. C. King, The Ethics of Jesus. 



40 Function of Teaching in Christianity 



CHAPTER III 

The Twelve Apostles as Teachers 

We have already seen how the idea of teaching 
was fundamental in the founding of Christianity. 
Jesus Himself was a great teacher. Teaching 
was preeminently His vocation during His public 
ministry. Not only was Jesus Himself a great 
teacher, but the message of the New Testament is 
couched in the language of the school. Christian- 
ity itself is a school. Some of its principal terms 
describing its message and the messengers are 
scholastic terms — e. g., teacher, teach, teaching, 
learner (disciple), make disciples (learners), etc. 

Now were the early Apostles, who were chosen 
by Jesus to accompany Him in His public and 
private ministrations, teachers? Is the term 
"teacher" applied to them? Are they said to 
have taught the people? The term "teacher" 
(didaskalos) is never expressly applied to any one 
of the Twelve in the New Testament. But it is 
clear that they did regard themselves as teachers. 
Indeed, Jesus in the Great Commission com- 
manded them to "teach," as well as "make dis- 
ciples." 

The verb "teach" is used sixteen times in the 
book of Acts and six times it refers to the early 
Apostles. In 4 : 1, 2, we find the Sanhedrin, 



Ttcelve Apostles as Teachers 41 

along with the captain of the temple, "sore 
troubled" because the Apostles, led by Peter and 
John, were "teaching the people and proclaiming 
in Jesus the resurrection from the dead." Here 
the Apostles were regarded by the priests and 
Sadducees, their enemies, as teachers, as well as 
preachers. They "preached" in Jesus (that is, on 
the basis of Jesus' being restored to life, which 
they firmly believed as a fact) the resurrection 
from the dead. But they also taught it. This 
is a broader term than the term "preach." They 
not only proclaimed publicly the resurrection of 
Jesus, but they taught it privately and publicly — 
that is, instructed smaller groups of inquiring men 
about the resurrection of Jesus. 

In 4 : 18, after the trial of the Apostles Peter 
and John before the Sanhedrin, the latter forbade 
them to speak or to "teach in the name of Jesus." 
Both these passages show that the Sanhedrin con- 
sidered teaching a function of the early Apostles. 

In Acts 5: 21, the Apostles Peter and John, 
after being divinely released from prison, went 
into the temple and "were teaching." This 
passage shows how the author of the Acts regarded 
the Apostles as teachers. In 5 : 25, a certain 
one reported to the Sanhedrin that the Apostles 
were "teaching in the temple." In 5: 28, the 
high priest, speaking for the Sanhedrin, reminded 
the two Apostles on trial how they had charged 
them strictly "not to teach in his name." 'In 5: 
42, the author again speaks of the Apostles as 



42 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

teaching and says they "ceased not to teach and 
to preach Jesus as the Christ." Here he places 
teaching by the side of preaching, and apparently 
puts it on the same footing as a function of the 
early Apostles. 

The word "teaching" (didachee) occurs twice in 
Acts (2: 42 and 5 : 28) in reference to the message 
of the Apostles. In the former passage "the 
apostolic teaching" is the standard to which the 
new converts to Christianity adhered. In the 
latter, the Sanhedrin accuses them of filling Jeru- 
salem with their teaching, which shows how active 
and successful were the Apostles as teachers imme- 
diately after the ascension of Jesus. 

Again, does not the term "apostle" (apostolos) 
itself signify a teacher? Is not the idea of teach- 
ing in this word? The word literally means an 
"envoy" or "delegate" (so used in Herodotus and 
other Greek authors) and apparently so in the 
New Testament, in 2 Cor. 8 : 23 and Phil. 2 : 25. 
But according to Mark 6 : 7, Jesus called the 
Twelve unto Him "and began to send them forth" 
(apostellein, the word from which apostle comes) 
"by two and two and He gave them authority over 
the unclean spirits." In Matthew's account of the 
appointment of the Twelve, 10: 1, we read, "He 
gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast 
them out, and to heal all manner of disease and all 
manner of sickness." In the parallel in Luke, 9: 
1, 2, it is said, in addition to giving them 
authority over demons and disease, "He sent 



Twelve Apostles as Teachers 43 

them forth to preach the kingdom of God and 
to heal." These words evidently apply pri- 
marily to that first missionary campaign in 
Galilee to which Jesus called the Twelve as 
assistants. See Matt. 9: 37, 38, the context, 
as proof of this view. But Mark 6: 6 says 
that Jesus was going "round about the vil- 
lages teaching " Now, if the going on this evan- 
gelistic campaign by Jesus and the Twelve is the 
occasion for the appointment of the Twelve (and 
it is likely that Mark has preserved the historical 
occasion of events in the life of Jesus, rather than 
Matthew or Luke) and if "teaching," as Mark 
says, was one method of evangelization, is it not 
natural to infer that Jesus appointed these men 
to the function of teaching? In fact, Luke says 
Jesus sent them forth to "proclaim the kingdom of 
God." They were to be preachers of the king- 
dom, and since preaching and teaching are of 
kindred significance in the New Testament it is 
reasonable to infer that Jesus appointed the 
Twelve to the function of teaching, as well as 
preaching, healing, and casting out demons. 

May we ask the purpose of Jesus in bringing 
the Twelve into such close fellowship with Himself 
and that so early in His ministry? Was not their 
association with Him a mean's of training them 
that they, after His death, might be qualified to 
teach the world His message? Tn other words, it 
seems likely that Jesus called the Twelve to train 
them for their future work, a considerable part of 



44 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

which would be to teach the truth of God as re- 
vealed in Jesus the Christ. The late Professor 
Bruce 1 says, "The deep truths which the great 
Teacher was so quietly and unobservedly . . . 
instilling into the minds of a select band, the 
recipients of His confidential teaching were to 
speak in the broad daylight ere long; and the 
sound of their voice would not stop till it had gone 
through all the earth." 

Notice especially Jesus' retirement to Caesarea 
Philippi (Mark 8: 27) to instruct His Apostles 
concerning His impending death. He first drew 
forth from them the confession, "Thou art the 
Christ" (Mark 8: 29). After He saw that they 
were bound by ties of love and trust to His person 
He "began to teach them, that the Son of man 
must suffer many things and be rejected by the 
elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be 
killed, and after three days rise again." What 
keen pedagogical acumen! He had them com- 
mitted to His person and mission, then He taught 
them that His death was necessary — was a part of 
His messianic work. He knew they thought He 
could not die if He was the Messiah. He must 
teach them the law of suffering in the kingdom; 
that death is the road to life, both for Him and 
them (Mark 8: 35). But why should Jesus so 
carefully train those men in those subtle teachings, 
if they were not to teach the same to men in the 
future? Jesus was a strategist and statesman, 
i rp he rp ra j nin g of t | ae Twelve, p. 107. 



Twelve Apostles as Teachers 45 

and foresaw the need of instructing men for the 
future if they were to receive those difficult and 
jet sublime laws of love, service, death, and 
sacrifice. 

So we see how Jesus trained the Twelve and 
committed to them Christian truths to be taught 
by them to others. John, Peter, and James be- 
came the first representative teachers of Christian- 
ity, thus bridging the years between Jesus and 
Paul. 



46 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

CHAPTER IV 

Paul as a Teacher 

We now come to the most unique personality in 
early Christian development. The Gospel had 
not been extensively propagated beyond the limits 
of Palestine before the life-work of Paul. Philip, 
it is true, had preached to the Samaritans and had 
won a proselyte Ethiopian to the acceptance of 
Christ as the Lamb of God and to the public con- 
fession of Him in baptism (Acts 8). Peter had 
preached (that is, if we regard the author's ar- 
rangement in Acts as chronological, which is some- 
what probable) to Cornelius, the Roman centu- 
rion, with his family and personal friends, who, we 
may suppose, were heathen (Acts 10: 1 to 11: 18). 
The gospel had also been taken to Antioch by some 
men of Cyprus and Cyrene and apparently 
preached to the Greeks as well as Jews; yea, 
Antioch was becoming a new center of Christian- 
ity before Paul entered upon his missionary 
activity (Acts 11: 19-26). But the proclamation 
of the gospel to the heathen had not been under- 
taken on a grand scale and as the specific mission 
of Christianity. The labors of the Twelve were 
limited largely to Jews and proselytes to Judaism. 

But in Paul we find a cosmopolitan thinker and 
actor. He has world thoughts and plans world 



Paul as a Teacher 47 

achievements. Did this great world thinker and 
actor regard himself as a teacher of Christianity ? 
Let us study the facts in the New Testament. 

THE FACT THAT PAUL WAS A TEACHER 

The term "teacher" is applied to Paul by himself 
only once (2 Tim. 1: 11). The text reads: 
"Whereunto (that is, unto the gospel) I was ap- 
pointed a preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher." 
Here Paul regards himself as fulfilling three func- 
tions — that of a preacher, that of apostle, and that 
of teacher. He had authority to proclaim pub- 
licly — that is, to preach the gospel — for God had 
called him to this function (Gal. 1 : 16), especially 
that he might preach Christ to the nations outside 
Palestine. 

He had Divine authority also to be an apostle — 
that is, to testify to Christ's resurrection, accord- 
ing to his account in 1 Cor. 15 : 8. Christ had 
appeared to him and called him to be a witness to 
His resurrection, though he was "untimely born" 
(1 Cor. 15 : 8), a child of Christianity born out of 
season. In this celebrated treatise of his, 1 Cor. 
15, he is fulfilling his function as an apostle. He 
is testifying to Christ's resurrection and partly, at 
least, makes it the basis of the Christian's resur- 
rection. 

But he also regards himself as a teacher by 
Divine appointment. He was not only to pro- 
claim the gospel publicly and to be a witness to 
Christ's resurrection, but he was to "teach the 



48 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

gospel." He felt that God called him to incul- 
cate the great principles of the gospel to the world, 
both on the theoretical and the practical side. 
Let us notice that Paul claims the same Divine 
call and appointment for his teaching function as 
for his preaching and apostolic functions. As a 
teacher he was called by God in the same sense 
that as a preacher and as an apostle he was called 
by God. 

There is only one other passage in the New 
Testament which apparently refers directly to 
Paul as a teacher. This is Acts 13 : 1. "Now 
there were at Antioch, ' in the church that was 
there, prophets and teachers, Barnabas and 
Symeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of 
Cyrene, and Manaen the foster brother of Herod 
the Tetrarch, and Saul." We do not know, for 
we are not told by the author of Acts, which of 
these five were prophets and which teachers. But 
it is very likely that Saul (Paul) was numbered 
as a teacher and not as a prophet, because no New 
Testament writer ever refers to him as a prophet, 
nor does he ever refer to himself as a prophet. 
But he does say that he had a Divine appointment 
as a teacher. Again, even if Paul were classed 
by the author of Acts as a prophet, he would also 
be a teacher. All prophets are teachers, but not 
all teachers are prophets. The main distinction 
between a New Testament prophet and a New 
Testament teacher seems to be that the former 
taught new truths, the latter inculcated old truths. 



Paul as a Teacher 49 

At any rate both taught, and so Paul is regarded 
as a teacher by the author of Acts. 

On the other hand, eleven times — seven in the 
Acts, four in the Epistles — Paul is shown to be in 
the act of teaching. It is said that Paul, in con- 
nection with Barnabas, who had searched out 
Paul in Cilicia and brought him to Antioch, 
"taught much people" (Acts 11: 26) in Antioch, 
the capital of the Eoman Province Syria-Cilicia 
and third city in the world, according to Josephus. 
This is the beginning of Paul's teaching, so far as 
our accounts in the New Testament inform us. 
It is likely, however, that he had, during the six or 
eight years in Cilicia prior to this, been teaching 
the gospel to his fellow provincials. 

We learn, also, that Paul and Barnabas, after 
the Jerusalem conference which decided that Paul 
and Barnabas might receive Gentiles as Christians 
without having them circumcised, "tarried in 
Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of the 
Lord, with many others also" (Acts 15 : 35). Here 
teaching is placed by the side of preaching, and 
even put first, Teaching in private must precede 
successful preaching. The preacher could not win 
men by his proclamation of the gospel until the 
teacher had privately instructed them in the prin- 
ciples of the gospel. 

Again, we are told that Paul continued in Cor- 
inth "a year and six months, teaching the word of 
God among them" (Acts 18: 11). This passage 
does not say that he preached at all during those 
—4— 



56 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

eighteen months. Doubtless he did. But teach- 
ing was his main work. He was instructing the 
Corinthians in the elementary principles of the 
gospel. They were accustomed to philosophical 
teachers who instructed them in the principles of 
their systems of thought. Paul abode a year and 
a half in this city of philosophy and taught the 
basal principles of his gospel. Teaching was his 
preeminent business in Corinth and the principal 
method of reaching the Corinthians with the 
gospel. To those who had accepted the principles 
©f one system or another of philosophy must he 
taught the teachings of the gospel system. 

Paul, in his farewell address to the Ephesian 
elders, reminds them, "I shrank not from declar- 
ing unto you anything that was profitable, 
and teaching you publicly and from house to 
house" (Acts 20: 20). Here Paul refers to two 
methods of his teaching, public and private. The 
former seems to refer to his teaching the groups 
that might gather in the synagogue or in any 
other public place, while the latter refers to his 
instructing people in their homes. 

James in Jerusalem reminds Paul of the report 
which the Jews had heard that Paul was teaching 
to "forsake Moses and his teachings" (Acts 21: 
21). 

The Asian Jews charge that Paul had been 
"teaching against the people and the law and this 
place" (the temple— Acts 21: 28). 

The author's last reference to Paul's work is 



Paul as a Teacher 51 

that he was "teaching the things concerning the 
Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness, none forbid- 
ding" (Acts 28: 31). In this context he also 
tells us that he was "preaching the kingdom." 
So preaching and teaching are again put side by 
side as functions exercised by Paul in his Eoman 
imprisonment. He proclaimed the coming of 
the kingdom and instructed the people in detail 
concerning the things of Jesus Christ, His life, 
death, resurrection, ascension, exaltation, second 
coming, His office of Saviour, Lord and Judge. 
All these teachings we find in his Epistles. He 
not improbably repeated them in his Eoman prison 
house to all who came to hear him. 

Moreover, the act of teaching is referred to 
himself by Paul four times in his Epistles. First, 
he exhorts the Thessalonian Christians, "so then, 
brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which 
ye were taught, whether by word, or by epistle of 
ours" (2 Thess. 2: 15). The Thessalonian Epis- 
tles were the earliest letters written by Paul. 
This is the concensus of opinion among New Testa- 
ment scholars. A few (Michselis, Koppe, Zahn, 
B. W. Bacon) regard Galatians as written before 
First Thessalonians, while Koehler and Schrader 
regard it as his latest. But most probably First 
Thessalonians was Paul's first letter to any church. 
This church was founded on his second missionary 
journey. It was in a heathen city. It is also 
probable that a majority of the members were 
from the pagan and not from the Jewish popula- 



52 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

tion (see Acts 17: 4, 10, and 1 Thess. 1:9). So 
Paul, when he first visited them, did much teach- 
ing as well as preaching. These heathen people 
must be instructed in the principles of the gospel. 
After leaving Thessalonica the Thessalonian Jews 
followed Paul (Acts 17 : 10) to hinder the progress 
of the gospel as he held it. From Paul's first 
letter to the Thessalonians (2: 14f), the Thessalo- 
nian Christians suffered persecution at the hands 
of their countrymen, and so Paul wrote this letter 
from Corinth to encourage them to "hold fast the 
traditions which they were taught." Notice the 
use of the term "traditions" to characterize Paul's 
teachings to this church during his first visit to 
them. Thayer 2 says this word in the plural sig- 
nifies "the particular injunctions of Paul's in- 
structions." The term emphasizes the fact that 
the instruction was oral. While with them he had 
instructed them by word of mouth; now he in- 
structs them by letter from Corinth to "hold (con- 
tinue to hold) those instructions" which they 
received from him orally, even though they were 
bitterly persecuted by their fellow countrymen. 

The act of teaching is not ascribed to Paul in 
Galatians or Eomans, but is in his First Epistle to 
the Corinthians. "For this cause have 1 sent 
unto you Timothy, who is my beloved and faithful 
child in the Lord, who shall put you in remem- 
brance of my ways in Christ, even as I teach 
everywhere in every church" (4: 17). From this 

2 Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, p. 481 



Paul as a Teacher 53 

reference we learn, first, that Paul regarded his 
teaching as based on Christ's teaching. He sent 
Timothy to Corinth "to put that church in remem- 
brance of his ways in Christ." Though Paul did 
not usually quote an ipse dixit of Jesus to corrob- 
orate his teaching, he felt that his own teaching 
was in the spirit of Jesus' teaching. In the next 
place, Paul taught in all the churches. This refers 
primarily to all those churches founded by him 
and his corps of missionary helpers : e. g., churches 
in Thessalonica, Galatia, Corinth, Philippi, 
Ephesus, Colossae, Laodicea, Hierapolis (Col. 4: 
13-16), Eome. Perhaps other churches in Asia 
(the province), Syria-Cilicia, Cyprus, Crete, etc., 
were included in the expression, "in every church 
everywhere." It is more than probable that he 
did not mean those churches that were founded 
under the auspices of the Jerusalem Apostles. 
This would have been contrary to the agreement 
reached at the Jerusalem conference (Acts 15), 
and we have no evidence that Paul ever violated 
the agreement of that conference, which gave to 
him the territory of "the Gentiles" and to Peter 
and the other Apostles the territory of "the cir- 
cumcision." Lastly, this reference shows that 
Paul valued his teaching as authoritative for all 
those churches. Hence, he sends a fellow min- 
ister, Timothy, to remind the church in Corinth 
at a critical moment in its history (when Judaiz- 
ing teachers were seeking to deflect the church 
from the Pauline gospel) of the teachings which 



54 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

he taught, not only to them, but to all the churches 
everywhere. He could not have insisted on his 
teachings being accepted thus without question, 
had he not valued them as of ultimate authority 
for all the churches. 

There are two passages in Colossians in which 
Paul refers to himself as teaching. "Whom 
(Christ) we proclaim, admonishing every man 
and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we 
may present every man perfect in Christ" (1: 28). 
The plural "we" includes Paul. It may be the 
author's "we" for "I," and mean only Paul, which 
is very probable. We notice that Paul teaches 
"in all wisdom." This seems to refer to the "idea 
of esoteric and exoteric wisdom represented by 
the false teachers." 3 That is, Paul teaches a 
Christian wisdom that is for all and not for an 
initiated few, as in the Greek doctrine of the mys- 
teries. We elaborate this point a little later in 
this chapter. 

Observe also that this passage gives us a prom- 
inent purpose for which Paul taught, viz. : the 
perfection of Christian character. This will be 
treated at length in another portion of this book 
(Part III, Chapter XIV). 

In the second passage, Paul says, "As therefore 
ye received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, 
rooted and built up in Him, and established in 



3 Vincent, Word Studios in the New Testament, III, 

p. 480. 



Paul as a Teacher 55 

your faith, even as ye were taught/ 7 etc. (2: 6, 7). 
Evidently Paul is referring to the instruction 
which the Colossian church received, at and imme- 
diately following the conversion of its first mem- 
bers, concerning Christ, His person and work, and 
the Christian life. Although this instruction 
was not given by Paul directly (for it is evident 
from Col. 2 : 1 that Paul did not found the church 
at Colossse), yet the teaching of the Colossian 
Christians to whom Paul refers in his letter, was 
virtually Paul's teaching. That is, he instructed 
the members of his missionary corps and some of 
them founded the church at Colossse and gave the 
members, at the beginning of their Christian 
course, Paul's teaching. So now Paul is exhort- 
ing them to "walk in Christ, rooted and built up 
in Him," just as they had been taught to do at their 
conversion. 

These are the only passages in which Paul refers 
the act of teaching to himself. But we observe, 
these four passages cover the first three classes of 
his Epistles — the Early Epistles, the Major Epis- 
tles, and the Imprisonment Epistles. Further- 
more in the Pastoral Epistles we found the 
classical passage (2 Tim. 1: 11) in which Paul 
tells of his Divine appointment as "teacher." 
Hence, in all periods of his epistolary career we 
see Paul a£ a teacher. 



56 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

THE CHARACTER OF PAUL AS A TEACHER 

Just as we summed up the leading characteris- 
tics of Jesus as a Teacher, let us do the same with 
reference to Paul, since Paul is the most prom- 
inent Christian teacher in the New Testament 
after Jesus. 

1. Paul Was a More Eadical Teacher than 
Jesus 
As we saw in Chapter II, Jesus was compara- 
tively conservative regarding the Old Testament 
system and even concerning some points in Juda- 
ism. Paul also based his main teachings on what 
he regarded as the proper interpretation of the Old 
Testament, but at the same time he made a com- 
plete break with Judaism. This Jesus never did. 
Though Jesus was not, Paul was, an iconoclast. 
To Paul Christianity was, though burying its roots 
in the Old Testament properly interpreted, an 
absolutely new religion. Yet, Jesus and Paul do 
not necessarily conflict with each other in this 
matter. They stood at different stages in the 
development of Christian thought. Jesus stoed 
at the beginning, when a complete break with the 
old would have been unwise. This He well knew. 
Also His teaching was preparatory, fundamental, 
and limited somewhat in its sphere. Paul stood 
at a higher point in the development of Christian 
teaching. Jesus had prepared for it, but it was 
left to Paul to make the final break with Judaism. 
Paul said, We must reject the late Jewish inter- 



Paul as a Teacher 57 

pretations of the Old Testament. We must give 
up circumcision as necessary to salvation. We 
must repudiate the doctrine of legal works as the 
means of salvation. These are wrong interpreta- 
tions of the Old Testament teaching, or human 
teaching supplementary to it. Men, from Abra- 
ham's time (he stops with Abraham because he 
was the father of the Jewish nation) believed God, 
and their faith was reckoned unto them for right- 
eousness (Rom. 4). That is, the Jews, under the 
old economy, were justified, brought into right 
relation with God, by faith. So are men now, 
says Paul. No man needs to be circumcised and 
keep all the ritual or ethical system of Moses that 
he may be saved. Men are saved by grace through 
faith in Christ. God graciously forgives the 
sinner who believes in the crucified and risen 
Christ (Rom. 3: 21-26 and Rom. 4: 1-9). 

Jesus implied in many of His parables (e. g. y 
those in Luke 14, etc.) that God graciously saves 
men who repent and believe. But Jesus did not 
quite so radically denounce the whole legalistic 
system as Paul did. However, compare Matt. 23. 
But Jesus' denunciation of the Pharisees in Matt. 
23 is quite a different position from that of Paul 
concerning legalistic righteousness in Galatians 
and Romans. Jesus denounces their hypocritical 
lives which are keeping them out of the kingdom. 
Paul is asserting that "the deeds of the law" can- 
not justify, save. Yet, Jesus prepared the way 
for Paul's iconoclastic teaching with reference to 
legalistic Judaism. 



58 



Function of Teaching in Christianity 



2. Paul Kegarded Himself as an Authoritative 
Teacher 

See above on 1 Cor. 4 : 17. In addition to what 
we said above on this passage, let us note that 
Paul regarded himself as an authoritative teacher, 
because he was carrying out the spirit of Christ. 
He did not think of himself in opposition to or in 
contrast with Jesus. He did not think of himself 
as possessing intrinsic authority. His authority 
was derived from Christ. Although he did not 
always claim direct authority from Jesus' teach- 
ing in his earthly ministry, yet he did regard his 
teaching as authoritative. See 1 Cor. 7: 25. 
"Now concerning virgins, I have no commandment 
of the Lord ; but I give my judgment, as one that 
hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be trust- 
worthy." His "trustworthy" authority rests on 
"the Lord" (that is, on Christ), who had bestowed 
on him His "mercy." 



3. Paul, Like Jesus, Was an Exoteric Teacher 

He did not wish to teach a small circle of dis- 
ciples. He wished no inner circle of learners to 
whom he might impart the special riches of his 
highest teaching, which were not to be given to 
the masses. See our observations on Col. 1 : 28, 
above. Paul was not esoteric like the false teach- 
ers to be confuted in the Colossian letter. They 
taught that knowledge (gnosis) was for the in- 
itiated few, and faith (pistis, lower than knowl- 



Paul as a Teacher 59 

edge) was for the masses. Paul regarded every 
Christian, whether Greek or Jew, bondman or 
freeman, etc. (Col. 3 : 11), as having the same priv- 
ileges in Christ. Onesimus, the slave, was a 
"brother beloved" as well as Philemon, his master 
(Philemon 16, 22). Paul was as willing to teach 
the runaway slave as he was to teach the emperor 
in the palace. Paul was preeminently an exoteric 
teacher. 

4. Paul Was a Cosmopolitan Teacher 

He was not to be circumscribed by provincial 
boundaries or racial distinctions. He taught in 
Asia and in Europe. He taught Jews, Greeks, 
and Eomans. It was his ambition to preach the 
principles of the gospel to every nation and tribe 
in the Koman world, even as far west as Spain 
(Bom. 15: 23). 

We know not when he received his world-wide 
vision, whether at his conversion, in the Arabian 
desert, or at x\ntioch in the year's great revival 
with Barnabas. Perhaps, it culminated in the 
last period, for soon we see him embarking for 
other parts to teach the gospel of grace to the 
world. 

Paul was a woijd thinker. He was a world 
teacher. No one city, no one nation, no one race, 
but all the world, was his school-room. He had a 
gospel which the w^hole world needed. There- 
fore, he felt that he must teach that gospel to the 
world. "I am debtor both to Greeks and to Bar- 



60 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

barians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So, 
as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the 
gospel (bring good tidings) to you also that are 
in Borne. For I am not ashamed of the gospel 
(good tidings) : for it is the power of God unto 
salvation to every one that believeth ; to the Jew 
first, and also to the Greek." (Bora. 1: 14-16.) 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Bruce, St. Paul's Conception of Christianity. 

Stevens, The Pauline Theology. 

O. Cone, Paul the Man, the Missionary, and the 
Teacher. 

Lock, Paul the Master Builder. 

W. J. Irons, Christianity as Taught by St. Paul. 

Spier, Paul, the All-Bound Man. 

A. Sabatier, The Influence of the Apostle Paul 
on the Development of Christianity. Hibbert 
Lectures, 1885. 

O. Everett, The Gospel of Paul. 

R. J. Knowling, The Witness of the Epistles. 



Other Teachers in New Testament 61 



CHAPTERtV 

Other Teachers in the New Testament 

There are various references in the New Testa- 
ment to other teachers than Jesus, the Twelve 
Apostles, and Paul. Let us study in detail these 
passages. 

In Acts 13 : 1, there are mentioned four others, 
besides Saul, who are called "prophets and teach- 
ers." We learned above that it made no difference 
to whom the title "prophet" and to whom the 
title "teacher" is specially applicable in this text. 
A prophet was a teacher, and so if these four 
men, other than Saul, were prophets, they were 
teachers, too. See Chapter IV, page 18, for 
the distinction between a prophet and a teacher. 
Barnabas was probably one of these specific teach 
ers mentioned in Acts 13 : 1, for it is said in Acts 
11 : 26 that Barnabas and Saul continued a year 
"and taught much people" in Antioch. 

In Acts 18 : 25, Apollos, an Alexandrian of cul- 
ture and eloquence, is said to have "taught accu- 
rately the things concerning Jesus." In the next 
verse, however, Priscilla and Aquila are said to 
have expounded (though the verb "teach" is not 
used) to the cultured Apollos "the way of God 
more accurately." 



62 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

TEACHERS IN THE CHURCH AT CORINTH 

In 1 Cor. 12 : 28, Paul mentions eight functions 
in the church, which God had appointed, and 
places the teachers third, just after apostles and 
prophets. We notice that pastors, bishops, or 
elders, or even "those who are over you" (1 Thess. 
5: 12), are not named in this list of ecclesiastical 
functions. \The church ^organization had !not 
reached its highest point of development in the 
church at Corinth when Paul wrote this letter. 
It also seems clear that the function of those 
called "teachers" in this list was separate and 
distinct from the functions of apostles and proph- 
ets. This passage also gives the teacher the next 
rank after apostles and prophets. When we 
remember that apostles and prophets had the 
specific function of testifying to Jesus' resurrec- 
tion and of imparting to men by special spiritual 
utterance other new truths growing out of the 
death and resurrection of Jesus, we see from 
this reference in Paul, how important and with 
what dignity he regarded the function of the 
teacher. The teacher stands next to the apostle 
and the prophet. 

Again, we notice from this passage, that Paul 
placed the function of teaching ahead of the func- 
tion of "governments." This last function, if not 
identical with that of the shepherd, Eph. 4: 11, 
and that of the bishop, Phil. 1: 1, is likely closely 
related to it. This function of "governments" is 



Other Teachers in New Testament 63 

probably the connecting link between the function 
of "those who are over you" (1 Thess. 5: 12) and 
the finally developed pastoral office alluded to in 
Phil. 1 : 1 and in 1 Tim. 3 : If. If this be the true 
interpretation of this passage, we must be im- 
pressed with Paul's high appreciation of the 
teacher's function in the economy of the church. 

As to whether Paul, in 1 Cor. 12 : 28, regarded 
teachers as a separate class of functionaries in the 
church, it is not easy to say positively. We do 
know that some of the functions named after 
teaching, viz. : miracle working, gift of healing, 
etc., were performed by the apostles, prophets, and 
teachers. Therefore, not all the functions men- 
tioned in this passage are necessarily to be per- 
formed by different functionaries. Hence, we 
cannot say positively that in this passage Paul 
thinks of the teachers as a different class from 
apostles, prophets., etc. Moreover, it is to be 
noticed that five out of eight of the expressions in 
this list describe functions and not functionaries. 
The first three refer to functionaries, apostles, 
prophets, teachers. The last five refer to the 
functions, miracles, gift of healings, helps, govern- 
ments, kinds of tongues. It seems from this last 
statement that the function was more prominent 
in Paul's mind than the functionary. And yet it 
seems not a violent interpretation of this text if 
we regard Paul as teaching that teachers consti- 
tuted aj distinct class of functionaries in the 
church at Corinth. To the people of Corinth, 



64 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

accustomed to be taught by a special class of phil- 
osophical teachers, the system of Christian teach- 
ings must be taught by a special class of Christian 
teachers. 

TEACHERS IN EPHESUS AND THE PROVINCE OF ASIA 

In Eph. 4: 11, Paul tells us that the ascended 
Christ "gave some to be apostles ; and some, 
prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pas- 
tors and teachers." It is to be observed that this 
letter was written from five to seven years later 
than the first letter to the Corinthians. There 
Paul mentions three functionaries and five addi- 
tional functions, eight in all. Here he names 
only five, but all are functionaries (apparently). 
That is, in the early period it was the function 
which engaged Paul's thought especially; in the 
later time it is the functionaries, the men, or the 
class of men, who were to perform those functions. 

Furthermore, we observe that "teachers" are 
placed last in the list in Eph. 4 : 11, while in 1 Cor. 
12 : 28 they were placed "third" in a list of eight. 
Evidently the local situation in the different 
churches addressed in the two different letters had 
much to do with Paul's different estimate bf 
teaching in the two letters. In Asia the teacher 
is not made so prominent as in Greece. The 
evangelist, the man who went from place to place 
proclaiming the good news of Christ's death, res- 
urrection, etc., as the hope of salvation, was 
placed in Ephesians ahead of the teacher. If 



Other Teachers in New Testament 65 

the letter to the Ephesians is a circular letter for 
all the churches in the province of Asia (which I 
regard as probable from both external and inter- 
nal evidence) it is seen how natural it is for Paul 
to exalt the function of the evangelist who was to 
proclaim the gospel throughout the province and 
not that of the teacher whose function was exer- 
cised in the local church. 

Finally, Ave notice in this passage that "the shep- 
herds and teachers" constitute apparently one 
class. Ellicott 1 emphasizes this and bases his 
view on a principle of syntax maintained in 
Winer's grammar, that is, the article is used with 
"the shepherds" but not with "teachers." If Paul 
had meant two distinct classes he would have 
said, "the shepherds and the teachers." This is 
a strong grammatical argument. If shepherds 
and teachers are as distinct from each other as 
pastors and evangelists, it seems reasonable that 
Paul would have said, "He gave some . 
evangelists; and some, pastors; and some, teach- 
ers." But he did not say it in this emphatic way. 

Hence we come to the conclusion that, though 
Paul emphasized the function of teaching at 
Corinth and placed teachers third in a list of 
eight functionaries and functions, and seemed to 
imply that they were a separate and distinct class 
from apostles and prophets, yet in his Ephesian 
letter he does not clearly separate the function of 
the shepherd (whom Ellicott, Lightfoot, and most 

1 Commentary on 1 Corinthians, in loco. 
—5— 



66 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

scholars, regard as identical with "bishop" in 
Phil. 1: 1 and 1 Tim. 3: If) and that of the 
teacher. These two functions may be exercised 
by the same person. Yet, he does not declare that 
the teaching function is useless or not to be appre- 
ciated. It is one of the essential, specific gifts 
made to the Church by the ascended Christ. 

PAUL AND FEMALE TEACHERS 

In 1 Tim. 2 : 12, the apostle says, "But I permit 
not a woman to teach, nor to have dominion over 
a man, but to be in quietness." The whole context 
shows that Paul is teaching the subjection of 
woman to man — a favorite teaching with the 
apostle. He shows how woman was made, not 
before, but after, man. Hence, the order of crea- 
tion suggests to Paul the subordination of woman 
to man. Again (v. 14) it was Eve, not Adam, 
that sinned first. Man was greater than she in 
that he did not first sin. Therefore, woman, 
though she is to be saved in sorrow and suffering 
(v. 15), must remain a silent learner in the Chris- 
tian assembly. Men alone may teach in the 
ekldesia, that is, in the public Christian assembly 
of men and women. 

In 1 Cor. 14 : 34f, Paul writes, "Let the women 
keep silence in the churches; for it is not per- 
mitted unto them to speak; but let them be in 
subjection, as also saith the law. And if they 
would learn anything, let them ask their own hus- 
bands at home : for it is shameful for a woman to 



Other Teaclicrs in New Testament 67 

speak in the church." Here is the same teaching, 
the subordination of woman to man. She must 
not ask questions in the public Christian assembly. 
In this passage Paul is not dealing with the ques- 
tion of teaching. He is discussing decorum in 
the exercise of Christian gifts in the public Chris- 
tian assembly of men and women. Men may 
prophesy and speak with tongues, but women must 
not. They must "keep silence" in the public 
assemblies. Of course, by inference this implies 
that women must not teach in the public assem- 
blies. 

In 1 Cor. 11 : 5f, Paul seems to teach that a 
woman may "prophesy or pray" in the assembly, 
if she keep her head "veiled." Meyer 2 suggests 
that in chapter 11 Paul is speaking about a 
smaller gathering of the church where it was per- 
missible for a woman to prophesy and pray, but in 
chapter 14 he is speaking about the public mixed 
assembly of all the church. This is speculation, 
since Paul does not tell us exactly what kind of 
meetings he is discussing in these passages. One 
thing is clear, Paul did not think it proper for 
women to teach, or exercise other functions of 
leadership, in the public assemblies. 

Now the question suggests itself: Did Paul 
mean to teach a universal principle for all time 
and for all churches, or did he mean to correct 
some local abuses among the Christian women of 
Greece and Asia (province) ? New Testament 

2 Commentary on 1 Corinthians, in loco. 



68 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

scholars are divided on the answer to this ques- 
tion. But did not Paul sometimes urge teachings 
that were specially applicable for local circum- 
stances with which he was dealing? Take, for 
example, his teaching concerning virgins, 1 Cor. 
7: 25f. "Art thou loosed from a wife? Seek 
not a wife." Why does he give such counsel? 
In verse 26 he says, "This is good by reason of the 
distress that is upon us." The local sufferings 
and persecutions made it prudent for men not to 
contract marriages in those perilous times. Paul 
was not undermining the Divine institution of 
marriage. He was teaching for specific local con- 
ditions. Is he not doing the same in chapter 14 
and in 1 Tim. 2: 12 concerning female teachers? 
It is probable. Heathen women in Greece and 
Asia, converted to Christianity with its principle 
of freedom, were perverting that glorious doctrine, 
and Paul felt that their freedom of speech in the 
public assemblies must be curbed. Meyer 3 says, 
"Corinthian women, with their freer mood in- 
clined toward emancipation, must have presumed 
on this (the public speaking of women) which 
appears to Paul as an act of uncomplying inde- 
pendence." 

On the other hand, it is to be noticed that ac- 
cording to Acts 18: 26, Priscilla, a woman of 
extraordinary ability, did teach the learned Apol- 
los, who became a great preacher (see 1 Cor. 3:4). 
Luke, the author of the Acts, apparently endorses 

3 Commentary on 1 Corinthians, p. 333. 



Other Teaclicrs in New Testament 69 

this teaching work of Priscilla. According to 
early Christian tradition, Luke received his gospel 
from Paul, and hence it is likely that Paul did not 
forbid women to teach privately. 

PAUL AND THE TEACHING PASTOR 

In the directions which Paul gives to Timothy 
(1 Tim. 3: 2), he says the bishop must be "apt to 
teach." Thayer 4 says this word means "apt or 
skilful in teaching." Paul uses the same expres- 
sion (the only other time the word is used in the 
New Testament) in his second letter to Timothy 
(2: 24), where he is exhorting Timothy to be 
"skilful in teaching." 

We observe as to the former passage : 
1. Along with moral and social qualifications of 
the bishop, Paul inserts this pedagogical requisite. 
He had just said that the bishop "must be without 
reproach, the husband of one wife (at a time, I 
take it), temperate, sober-minded, orderly, given 
to hospitality, apt to teaclv, no brawler (that is, 
not quarrelsome over wine), no striker; but 
gentle, not contentious, no lover of money; one 
that ruleth well his own house, having his chil- 
dren in subjection with all gravity." All these 
requisites refer to some social or moral phase of 
the bishop's living, except the one expression, "apt 
to teach." Is it not strange that Paul should 
have inserted an injunction for so different a qual- 



4 Greek-English Lexicon of New Testament, p. 114. 



70 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

iflcation into this catalogue of moral and social 
qualifications? It is not strange when we re- 
member that false teachers had already begun to 
enter the province of Asia and to lead the people 
(even some of the members of the churches) away 
from the sound teaching which they had received 
from Paul and his corps of missionary teachers. 
The new bishops who shall be overseers over the 
churches of Asia must be able to teach, in order 
to counteract the baneful influences of the false 
teachers and to keep the people informed in "sound 
teaching," that they may "maintain good works." 

2. This expression, "apt to teach/' implies a 
natural fondness and disposition in the bishop for 
teaching. It is a pedagogical principle that no 
one can teach without the inherent disposition to 
impart instruction to others. Moreover, it is a 
general principle, everywhere else as well as in 
pedagogy, that no man does well anything with- 
out a disposition for the doing of that thing. How 
careful presbyteries should be in setting apart men 
to the pastoral office! Paul says they "must" be 
"apt to teach." 

3. This word also implies that the bishop should 
know some things. Who can teach without know- 
ing? He may try, but he will not be "skilful in 
teaching." Of course, Paul did not think of the 
bishop as having to know so many things as they 
are to know in these days. But he must have felt 
how essential it was for a bishop to be a man of 
knowledge if he should prove to be "skilful in 
teaching." 



Other Teachers in New Testament 71 

4. This expression also emphasizes dexterity in 
teaching. The bishop must not only know the 
subjects to be taught, but he must know how to 
teach them "skilfully." The pastor is also a 
pedagogue and so should be versed in psychology 
and pedagogy. No man should assume the pas- 
torate without learning all he can about the prin- 
ciples of pedagogy. The pastor is also a teacher as 
well as a "preacher and a shepherd. Hence he 
should give diligence to present himself "ap- 
proved unto God, a workman that needeth not to 
be ashamed, handling aright the word of the 
truth." He should study, not only the subjects 
to be taught, but also the best methods for im- 
parting truth. He should also study the pupils 
that he may be able to "handle aright the word of 
truth." "Truth" is the teacher's tool, and to 
polish human souls with truth is his function. 
But, in order to impart that truth most effectively, 
he must know the soul that is to receive it (that 
is, he must know psychology) and must know 
how the soul receives truth (that is, must know 
pedagogy). 

The apostle exhorts in 2 Tim. 2 : 2, "The things 
which thou hast heard, . . . the same commit 
thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach 
others also." In 1 Tim. 5 : 17, the apostle again 
says, "Let the elders that rule well be counted 
worthy of double honor, especially those who labor 
in the word and in teaching." This language, 
perhaps, implies that not all elders are teachers, 



72 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

and yet this language must not be pressed too 
far, in the light of 1 Tim. 3 : 2. 

As to 2 Tim. 2 : 24, it is not certain that Timothy 
was bishop in Ephesus, and so we cannot press 
this passage, for it refers to Timothy himself. If 
we press literally 2 Tim. 4 : 5, "Do the work of an 
evangelist" Timothy was not a pastor (poimeen 
or episkopos), but was an evangelist (euangel- 
istes). If he was merely a missionary evangelist 
for the province of Asia, this text, 2 Tim. 2 : 24, 
shows what Paul thought about the work of evan- 
gelists. Whatever else they may be, they are 
teachers, too. In 1 Tim. 4 : 11, Paul exhorts 
Timothy explicitly, "These things command and 
teach" Timothy was to be a teacher, although 
an evangelist; that is, to be a New Testament 
evangelist is also to be a teacher. 

In Heb. 5: 12, the author chides the Jewish 
Christians addressed that though they "ought to 
be teachers," as it has been so long since they 
matriculated as learners of Christ, they have need 
that someone should teach them the rudiments of 
the first principles of the oracles of God. This 
passage implies that all Christians should, in some 
sense, be teachers of the principles of Christianity. 
That is, all Christians should so learn and apply 
the principles of Christianity in their personal 
development that they can teach others. This 
passage is not dealing with a distinct class of 
Christian teachers. 

In James 3 : 1, we have a warning against going 



Other Teachers in New Testament 73 

into the business of teaching without proper qual- 
ifications or an adequate sense of responsibility. 
"Be not many of you teachers (as a special class 
of leaders in thought), my brethren, knowing that 
we shall receive heavier judgment." The Greek is, 
"become not many teachers." The Jews were 
fond of the office of teaching, and so many, not 
qualified to teach, thrust themselves into the busi- 
ness of public teaching. So some early Jewish 
Christians were infatuated with the popular busi- 
ness of expounding and teaching the new principles 
of Christianity. The old Jewish maxim is appli- 
cable here, "Love the work of a teacher, but strive 
not after the honor" The business of imparting 
truth to others, not the honors to be shared, should 
lead men to assume the teacher's office. This 
counsel by James is good for the twentieth century. 
It is not the large number in the teacher's chair, 
but the fine quality and thorough equipment of 
those who teach, that counts most for truth in its 
campaign to set men free from ignorance and error 
and sin and suffering. 

SUMMARY AS TO THE CLASS OP TEACHERS IN THE 
NEW TESTAMENT 

1. Jesus was the great model teacher. 

2. The early apostles were also teachers to im- 
part the great spiritual truths of Christianity as 
opportunity for development arose. 

3. Paul was divinely called a teacher as well as 
divinely called an apostle and a preacher. 



74 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

4. Barnabas was likewise a teacher along with 
Paul in Antioch and on the first missionary tour. 
Perhaps (though it is not absolutely certain) Bar- 
nabas continued as a, teacher of Christianity after 
his separation from Paul. 

5. Apollos, the Alexandrian of culture and elo- 
quence, was a Christian teacher, as well as a 
preacher. 

6. Priscilla, the prominent Christian Jewess, 
and her husband, were teachers of Apollos, the 
brilliant preacher as well as the cultured teacher. 

7. Paul taught that pastors should be teachers, 
too. 

8. Paul seems to teach that in the early church 
(1 Cor. 12 : 28) there was a separate class of func- 
tionaries called teachers. 

9. Paul forbade women in Greece and Asia to 
become teachers in the public assembly, though it 
is probable that he did not object to female teach- 
ers of private classes composed of women and 
children. The primary teaching of Paul in these 
passages is the subordination of women with 
which public teaching is incompatible. 

10. Paul exhorted Timothy the evangelist to be 
a teacher also. New Testament evangelism is 
based on, and implies, teaching the great prin- 
ciples of Christianity. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

There is no literature on the subject (except 
commentaries, none of which treat the subject 
from our point of view) . 



PART II 

Modern Christian Teachers 

(75) 



CHAPTER VI 

Parents as Christian Teachers 

The oldest of Divine institutions is the home, 
and with the home we begin the discussion on 
modern Christian teachers. The first teacher that 
teaches the child the lessons of Christianity is the 
mother who watches over him during the most 
plastic years of his life. The second teacher 
(following the old Hebrew and Jewish method 
which, it seems, is the normal process) should be 
the father. 

Dr. Broadus, in commenting on Pope's line, 
"The proper study of mankind is man," para- 
phrased it thus, "The proper study of mankind is 
the child." Permit me further to change the illus- 
trious line and make it read, "The proper student 
of mankind is the child"; furthermore, as a corol- 
lary of this proposition, "The proper teacher of 
mankind — the child — is the parent" The mother 
and father who have, under the Maker's natural 
laws, brought the little life into the world, love 
the child best of all, are most interested in its life, 
character and destiny, and hence are psychologic- 
ally best fitted to impart to that young life Chris- 
tian teachings. 

(77) 



78 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

COMMANDS AND EXAMPLES FROM THE SCRIPTURE 

Are there Scriptural materials to which we can 
appeal in urging modern parents to fulfill the 
function of Christian teachers ? The Hebrew sage, 
giving expression to the highest religious wisdom 
attained among the ancient Hebrews, says, "Train 
up a child in the way he should go, and when he is 
old he will not depart from it" (Prov. 22: 6). 
This is, at least, an urgent exhortation, if not a 
positive command, of Divine Wisdom, that parents 
should from the birth of their children instruct 
them in the right ways of living. 

The Hebrew word, "train up," according to 
Gesenius, 1 means literally, "to put something into 
the mouth, to give to be tasted," then metaphor- 
ically "to imbue some toe with anything, to in- 
struct." So we see the word looks back to the 
helpless condition of the infant when mother must 
"put things into the mouth" to nourish the little 
life. Hence, it signifies, in its ethical and religious 
sense, that the mother and the father are to put 
ethical and religious teachings into the head and 
heart of the helpless child, in order to "instruct 
him in the way he should go." 

In the New Testament, the Apostle says, "And, 
ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath; 
but nurture them in the chastening and admoni- 
tion of the Lord" (Eph. 6:4). Here we are struck 
with the use of the masculine "fathers," and the 



1 Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon. 



Parents as Christian Teachers 79 

omission of mothers from his exhortation. Did 
the Apostle mean to leave out the mothers as 
Christian teachers? It is not thinkable. It is 
only the Jewish way of saying "fathers and moth- 
ers." The father was regarded as the head of the 
family and was often mentioned as including both 
parents. It does, however, put special emphasis 
on the obligation of "fathers" to nurture their 
children with Christian teachings. But it can 
scarcely mean that the apostle overlooks the 
moulding influences of mothers over their children. 
It is to be noted that the verb of the sentence is 
in the imperative mood and expresses either an ex- 
hortation or a command. Perhaps the latter is 
prominent. Hence, Paul charges Christian 
parents as under obligation to instruct their 
children in the teachings of Christianity. 

There are also examples, in the Scriptures, of 
parents, especially mothers, who trained their 
children in the thoughts and ways of God. It 
seems providential that the plan was laid between 
Miriam and the mother of Moses that his mother 
be called to the banks of the Nile to teach the 
young child the ways of Jehovah and prepare him 
for his eventful future. Hannah gave her infant 
son, Samuel, to the Lord and gave him to the 
service of the Lord as an attendant on Eli the 
priest. The lad, blessed with this religious envi- 
ronment, heard the voice of Jehovah calling him 
continually and replied, "Speak, Lord, thy servant 
heareth." 



80 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

Mary, the mother of Jesus, must have prized the 
privilege of training her heaven-given child. 
When He was twelve years old, we find her taking 
Him to Jerusalem (Luke 2) to attend the Passover, 
The boy Jesus was so interested in the religious 
discussions of the doctors of the law that He re- 
mained in the temple while His mother returned 
home. He must have received much religious in- 
struction from His mother during those first twelve 
years, or He would not have been so much inter- 
ested in the religious and theological problems dis- 
cussed by the Kabbinic teachers. Again, in Luke 
4 : 16, it is said of Jesus, after He was thirty years 
of age, that He "entered, as his custom was, into 
the synagogue on the Sabbath day." Who taught 
Him the habit of entering the synagogue each Sab- 
bath ? A loving mother. She had told Him the 
story of her nation's unique history and led Him 
to love the institutions of His Heavenly Father. 

In the Second Epistle to Timothy (1: 5), the 
Apostle reminds the young preacher "of the un- 
feigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in 
thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; 
and I am persuaded, in thee also." Here Paul 
recognized the fruitful instructions and examples 
of mother and grandmother in shaping the faith 
and life of the young preacher. He further re- 
minds Timothy that "from a babe thou hast known 
the Sacred Writings which are able to make thee 
wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ 
Jesus" (2 Tim. 3: 15). Who taught Timothy 



Parents as Christian Teachers 81 

the "Sacred Writings"? His mother, Eunice. 
Who taught his mother, Eunice? Her mother, 
Lois. So Paul puts the crown of honor on the 
mother who teaches her child "the Sacred Writ- 
ings" and thus helps to give the world a preacher 
of the gospel. 

Strange to say, Paul never refers to the early 
instructions of his own father and mother. But 
in Phil. 3 : 5, he gives a description of his early 
career which warrants us in making some natural 
inferences as to his parental instructions. "Cir- 
cumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of 
the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, as 
touching the law a Pharisee." His father and 
mother had him "circumcised the eighth day," 
and hence we conclude that they were loyal He- 
brews, though living in a Koman city of hellenistic 
culture. They taught him to love the Old Testa- 
ment, to keep the law of Moses and the Kabtes as 
the only way to be righteous, and this instruction 
of the boy Paul in legal righteousness helped after- 
ward, by contrast especially, to give shape to his 
Christian theology. 

Furthermore, it must be said that even heathen 
teachers recognized the duty of parents to train 
their children. Plato, the Greek philosopher, 
represents Crito as saying, "No man should bring 
children into the world who is unwilling to perse- 
vere to the end in their nurture and education." 
Confucius, in China, living about one hundred 
years before Plato, inculcated the same duty of 



82 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

parents to their children, though it is to be noted 
that he abnormally emphasized the duty of chil- 
dren to parents. Other heathen teachers and 
philosophers have likewise taught the obligation 
of parents to train their children morally and 
religiously. 

THE EARLY NEED OF CHRISTIAN INSTRUCTION BY 
PARENTS 

An eminent educator has said, "Parents will 
never fill the place they ought to fill in the econ- 
omy of the world until the home training of their 
children is their supreme concern." There are 
two great laws of biology and psychology which 
make it necessary that the child from his birth, 
yea, long years before he is born, should receive 
proper Christian instruction. 

1. The Law of Environment. As the little tree 
needs, from the moment it emerges from the seed 
and peeps above the soil, the proper environment 
as to soil, moisture, light, heat, protection from 
harm; as the blooded colt, even from its birth, 
needs the proper food, exercise, training, and at- 
tention, to give him the highest degree of develop- 
ment and the quickest speed; so the infant, sleep- 
ing on its mother's breast, helpless, innocent, im- 
mortal, pregnant with almost infinite possibilities 
of development in character, achievements, and 
destiny, needs in the home the sweetest moral and 
religious atmosphere to breathe, even from the day 
of his birth. Then as his faculties of mind and 



Parents as Christian Teachers 83 

spirit open to receive, he needs proper Christian 
teachings to turn his thoughts and faith and love 
to God who made him and loves him better than 
his earthly father, and to Christ who saves sinners 
and teaches men how to live beautiful lives of love 
and service. 

Eichter wrote, "The circumnavigator of the 
globe is less influenced by the nations he sees than 
by his nurse." If this is true — and who can doubt 
it? — how essential that the mother should be the 
child's nurse ! Southey said, "Live as long as you 
may, the first twenty years are the longest half of 
life." Why are the first twenty years the longest 
half of life? Because the first twenty years fur- 
nish the seed corn for the harvests of the last 
forty, fifty, or sixty years. Because in the first 
twenty years all those ideas and impressions are 
imparted to the child and youth which constitute 
the basis of his character, achievements, and 
destiny. 

Modern psychologists, from their recent investi- 
gations in the growth of the child's thoughts and 
character, have fairly well agreed that in the first 
seven years of life the child receives all the ideas 
and impressions that determine the character, life, 
and destiny of the man. The modern psychol- 
ogists may have cut short the actual time limit for 
this preparation, but it is a certainty that in the 
first few years — not more than eight or ten — the 
materials for the whole web of character and life 
have been spun. In after life the youth, the man, 



84 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

simply weaves into character, achievements, and 
destiny, the materials — ideas and impressions — 
imparted to him in the first few years of life. Oh, 
how grave the responsibility of the mother and 
father who are — or should be — the closest com- 
panions of their child in those years in which the 
materials of life and character are spun! As 
Henry Turner Bailey, one of the greatest modern 
educators, says, "The home must ever hold first 
place in every adequate educational system ; first, 
because it lays the foundations of character before 
school age; first, also, because the influence of 
parents is of necessity unescapable and potent. 
Schools, churches, clubs, societies, courts, prisons, 
hospitals, and poor farms exist only to conserve 
the successes and redeem the failures of the home. 
The home is the heart of the world." 

2. The Law of Heredity. This law is recognized 
in Scripture and in natural science. Heredity is 
"the transmission of qualities, or character, of 
parents to their offspring." Hence, the mother 
and father should be teachers of Christian truths 
long before their child is born. Timothy Dwight, 
on being asked the secret of his success, replied, 
"I had the right mother." That noble mother of 
culture and religion instilled into young Dwight's 
mind and heart the love of God and of Christ and 
the ambition to serve his fellow men with religion 
and culture. If blood counts in producing the 
finest birds and horses, if seed counts in the pro- 
duction of the sweetest roses and the fairest lilies, 



Parents as Christian Teachers 85 

does not parental stock count in the moulding of 
the best human character and the noblest human 
living? Is it not worth while that "the grand- 
mother, Lois/ 5 should teach "the mother, Eunice/' 
in order to give to the world a Timothy who knows 
the Scriptures from a babe, and who becomes a 
preacher of the everlasting gospel ? 

Let us be clearly understood in our plea for 
early religious training. This early religious 
training does not preclude the necessity of con- 
version, but makes conversion easier and earlier 
and surer. Harold Begbie 2 says, "Learning to 
appreciate religious education, the church has 
drifted away from its appreciation of conversion." 
This must not be the result of early religious train- 
ing. It need not be. 

ALL PARENTS SHOULD BE CHRISTIANS 

This is but pressing the issue further back to 
the basal proposition, all parents should be Chris- 
tians. No mother and father can teach Christian- 
ity to their child unless they themselves are Chris- 
tians, any more than a High School teacher can 
teach his pupils Latin unless he himself knows 
Latin. How tremendous is the responsibility of 
bringing children into existence! To be an agent 
in the production of life, immortal life, with eter- 
nal destiny and possibilities, how great is the 
responsibility! Yet this is what motherhood and 



2 Twice Born Men. 



86 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

fatherhood mean. Moreover, this child-life, this 
immortal life, is incomplete, helpless. It is per- 
fect life only in embryo. It needs nurture to be- 
come what the Maker intends it should be. It 
must have intellectual, religious, and ethical food, 
as well as physical. Who must give it in those 
early years? The logical answer is, the mother 
and father through whom this incomplete, help- 
less life came into God's world. Can that child 
reach its highest destiny without becoming a 
Christian, without believing in God and Christ, 
and living the spiritual and ethical truths of 
Jesus and Paul? We have no assurance that he 
can. Therefore, he must be taught those truths, 
and if he is to become his best and noblest self, he 
must be taught them in the early years, the parents 
must be Christians and conscious of a charge to 
keep, namely, to imbue the child's mind and heart 
with Christian ideas and impressions. Euskin 
says, "Whatever I have done in my life has simply 
been due to the fact that when I was a child my 
mother daily read with me a part of the Bible, 
and daily made me learn a part of it by heart." 

HOW PARENTS SHOULD TEACH CHRISTIAN TRUTHS 

Hastings Eashdall 3 says, "Catechisms of civil 
duty and the like have not proven hitherto very 
satisfactory substitutes for the old teaching about 
the fear of God. Would that it were more fre- 



3 Philosophy and Religion, p. 77. 



Parents as Christian Teachers 87 

quently remembered oil both sides of our educa- 
tional squabbles that the supreme object of all re- 
ligious education should be to instill into chil 
dren's minds in the closest possible connection the 
twin ideas of God and of Duty!" To help us in 
heeding this warning we go back to Paul, in Eph. 
6 : 4. Though Ave have no statement that Paul 
w r as himself a father, he learned the relation of 
parent and child by his own filial relation to his 
father and not by his parental relation to children 
of his own. Paul, led by the Spirit of God, gives 
us a message, in the above passage, about how .to 
train children in the home. 

1. By example. This is the contention of Arch- 
bishop Trench. 4 The Greek word, "paideia" 
translated "chastening" in the American Eevision, 
means to instruct "by act," while "nouthesia" 
translated "admonition," means "instruction by 
word." I feel sure that the Apostle would regard 
as elemental parental teaching by example. "Ac- 
tions speak louder than words," is an ethical axiom 
as old as speech and conduct. The mother and 
father, if they would teach their children effect- 
ively by word, must first teach them by example. 
The child learns faster by observing concrete ex- 
amples than by listening to abstract principles, 
or even to stories of good heroes. If the father 
and the mother would teach their children to read 
the Bible and pray, attend Sunday School and 
church services, be kind, forgiving, and helpful to 

4 The New Testament Synonyms, Sec. 32. 



88 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

others, they themselves must lead the way. Alas ! 
it must be said of too many parents, as Junius, in 
his letter to the Duke of Grafton, said, "I do not 
give you to posterity as a pattern to imitate, but 
as an example to deter" 

2. By imparting- 'knowledge. Plato defines this 
word "paideia," "chastening," as "education." It 
was the regular Greek word for education in the 
classical period. Of course, education means more 
than the impartation of knowledge, but this is an 
essential part of education. The parent should 
teach the growing child, even from two years and 
up, about God who made him and loves him, but 
punishes all wrong doing because He hates evil; 
of Jesus Christ as God's Son who became our 
Saviour by becoming a man, dying and being 
raised again ; of sin itself as the breaking of God's 
law ; that even the best of men cannot save them- 
selves from sin without Christ their Saviour; of 
the Bible as the best of books which God prompted 
good men to write, in order to tell us who God is 
and of His plan to save men through Christ His 
Son ; of the church which Jesus loved and founded 
for all who trust and love Him, and as an agency 
to carry His gospel to all the world ; of how God 
expects us all to love and help one another in all 
things. 

3. By discipline. In the Septuagint and in the 
New Testament the word "paideia" "chastening," 
usually implies discipline. (However, this mean- 
ing is not in the word in the classical authors.) 



Parents as Christian Teachers 89 

Parents must set up a family government and chil- 
dren must be obedient citizens in that little repub- 
lic, while the parents are executives. Archbishop 
Davidson, in a great Episcopal gathering in 
Boston recently, said, "There is a decadence in the 
definite religious life of the ordinary home." Why 
is home religion declining? Is it not for the lack 
of strong family government? We would not 
urge a return to the Puritanic family discipline, 
but we do urge the maintenance of the Pauline 
type of home religion. This can be attained only 
by the firm and loving exercise of family dis- 
cipline. 

4. By admonition, "Nurture them in admoni- 
tion." The parents, because they know, should 
warn their children against the evil, physical, in- 
tellectual, religious, and moral, but encourage 
them to love and practice the good and beautiful 
in every realm of thought and life. 

William James Sidis, the twelve-year-old prod- 
igy of Harvard, who lectures to professors on 
mathematics, it is claimed, has become the marvel 
of all because of careful training from birth by his 
father, who is a psychologist. H. Addington 
Bruce, 5 in accounting for the prodigious develop- 
ment of this wonderful boy, makes this statement 
of the universal principle of "suggestion" : "Every- 
thing about us, as is now beginning to be pretty 
generally appreciated, is of suggestive value. 

6 Article, "Bending the Twig," the American Magazine, 
March, 1910. 



90 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

From our friends, our books, the very pictures on 
our walls, from everything in our environment, we 
constantly receive suggestions which influence us 
to a varying but none the less unmistakable extent. 
This is particularly true of the plastic period of 
childhood. Recent psychological investigation 
has made it certain that everything the child re- 
ceives or hears, no matter whether he is con- 
sciously aware of it or not, leaves a more or less 
profound impression, is 'subconsciously' remem- 
bered by him, and may at times exercise a deter- 
mining influence upon the whole course of his life." 
Dr. Sidis, the father of this wonderful boy and the 
author of a standard text-book on "The Psychology 
of Suggestion," says, "Any normal child would 
make as good a showing if he were given the same 
training." 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Dawson, The Child and His Eeligion. 

S. D. Gordon, Quiet Talks on Home Ideals. 

H. S. Dyer, The Ideal Christian Home. 

Sidis, The Psychology of Suggestion. 

See Eeport of the Religious Education Associa- 
tion, 1911, which met in Providence, R. I., whose 
theme was "Religious Education and the Ameri- 
can Home." 



The Pastor as a Teacher 91 



CHAPTER VII 

The Pastor as a Teacher 

Most of the preachers in charge of churches 
regard themselves primarily as pulpiteers and 
shepherds. Their function as teachers has not 
been emphasized. They think of themselves as 
divinely appointed to proclaim from the pulpit the 
Word of God. They also feel that God has called 
them to care for souls ; that is, to act as shepherds 
over "the church of God which He hath purchased 
with His own blood." But the average pastor has 
not yet laid to heart his Divine commission to be a 
teacher of the Word. He does not recognize, to 
any practical extent, that he is, par excellence, 
God's chosen teacher of the people. 

Of course, we do not mean to minimize the public 
proclamation of the gospel. (For details as to 
terms in New Testament,, see Appendix IV.) 

Doubtless, the day will never come this side of 
the consummation of human history, when preach- 
ing, that is, the public proclamation of the gospel 
to the masses, will be discontinued. It will always 
be necessary to "proclaim the word" (2 Tim. 4:2). 
The pulpit will never lose its hold on the masses, 
if it proclaims the Word of God in its purity and 
adapts it to the specific needs of each generation. 
The pulpiteer will always be a man of power in 



92 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

the community. The man who proclaims publicly 
the great verities of divine truth will ever be a 
chief factor in the moulding of human society and 
in the shaping of individual deportment and 
destiny. 

Still, we wish to emphasize another phase of the 
pastor's mission. It is just as clear that the 
bishop of the local church is to be a teacher as w r ell 
as to be a preacher. In fact, neither Jesus, the 
Twelve, nor Paul, ever gave any specific direction 
concerning the function of bishops as preachers. 
John the Baptist preached, Jesus preaehed, the v 
Twelve preached, Philip preached, others preached, 
but not in one single passage did Jesus or any 
apostle exhort the bishop of the local church to 
preach the gospel, unless 2 Tim. 4 : 2 be an exam- 
ple. It is extremely improbable that the Apostle 
in this passage is exhorting Timothy as the pastor 
of the church to "preach the word." It is more 
probable that Timothy was exercising the function 
of evangelist and general superintendent of mis- 
sions in the Eoman province, Asia, and as such he 
is exhorted by Paul to "preach the word" 

But there are two characteristic texts in the 
Pastoral Epistles which teach that the bishop is a 
teacher. In 1 Tim. 3: 2, the Apostle says, "The 
bishop must be . . . apt to teach." The con- 
struction in the Greek shows that the word (one 
word in Greek), "apt to teach," depends grammat- 
ically on the verb "must." Hence, the apostle is 
teaching that it is as necessary for the bishop to 



The Pastor as a Teacher 93 

be "apt to teach" as it is for him to be "without 
reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, 
sober-minded, orderly, given to hospitality ; ... no 
brawler, no striker; but gentle, not contentious; 
no lover of money; one that ruleth well his own 
house, having his children in subjection with all 
gravity." No one has the scriptural right to be 
inducted into the bishop's office until he has satis- 
fied the condition of being "apt to teach." Of 
course, this does not mean that every bishop must 
be a born or technically trained pedagogue. It 
does not signify that all bishops must have equal 
ability to teach. Each bishop's individuality must 
be reckoned with. Each one must be apt to teach 
in proportion to his own natural capacity and 
training. Yet, it is plain that the Apostle meant 
to exhort every bishop in each local church to be 
"apt to teach." 

Again, in 2 Tim. 2 : 2, the Apostle wrote, "And 
the things which thou hast heard from me among 
many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful 
men, who shall be able to teach others also." The 
New Testament exegetes are fairly well agreed that 
Paul is here talking about bishops, when he speaks 
of the appointment of "faithful men, wiio shall be 
able to teach others also." Timothy is warned by 
the Apostle to see to it that the Apostle's teachings 
shall be committed to faithful bishops who shall be 
able to transmit those teachings to others also. 

Moreover, as we saw above, in commenting on 
Eph. 4 : 11, Paul seems to place "the shepherds" 



94 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

(pastors) and "teachers" in the same class by the 
omission of the article with the second word, 
"teachers." 

In the letters of the second period (Horn. 12: 7; 
1 Cor. 12: 28) Paul emphasizes the function of 
teaching, but does not positively declare that the 
teacher and the bishop are the same person. Yet, 
Acts 13: 1 would suggest that the "teachers" (to 
which class Paul and Barnabas likely belonged) 
were closely associated with the administration of 
the affairs of the local church. Barnabas and Saul 
(as assistant) seem to have been the shepherds of 
the church in Antioch, although they are not yet 
called "shepherds" or "bishops." 

In the Didache (15: 1, written about 155 A.D.) 
we find that both bishops and deacons exercised the 
function of teaching. Thus we see the teaching 
idea in the church becoming more prominent from 
the apostolic age on. 

THE MODERN PASTOR AS A TEACHER 

But we may ask, Is the function of teaching 
binding on the pastor of the modern church? A 
thousand times, yes, we reply. It is true that 
Christianity was a new religion in the apostolic 
age, and its tenets must be taught before men 
could or would accept them. It has been taught 
to the world nineteen centuries, but how imper- 
fectly and partially! To a large part of the 
world the principles of Christianity are yet to be 
taught. Myriads of people in our Christian lands 



The Pastor as a Teacher 95 

have wrong or imperfect views of Christian teach- 
ings. Is there, then, less need now for the pastor 
to be a teacher than there was in the apostolic 
age? Every pastor has within the radius of his 
church many people who have improper views of 
Christianity. Who must teach them, if not the 
pastor? In all our large towns and cities there 
are hundreds and thousands who entertain grossly 
false ideas of the Christian religion. Is it not a 
part of the business of the local pastors to instruct 
the people on the real teachings of Christianity ? 

Moreover, this is an age of education. The 
people are becoming more cultivated in the various 
realms of culture — in literature, science, art, the 
languages, history, economics, sociology, etc., etc. 
And the most serious problem confronting Chris- 
tian teachers today is that the modern world has 
radically changed its view point in thought and 
culture, since the days of Jesus and the Apostles. 
The world is learning so many things in natural, 
political, and social science, and in general cul- 
ture, that were not dreamed of in the apostolic 
days. What must we do with this situation? 
How can we hold the modern world with the 
teachings of Jesus and the Apostles? Ig the 
modern world entirely reluctant to receive the 
moral and religious teachings of Jesus and Paul? 
I think not, if those teachings are stripped of much 
Oriental and first century drapery which are not 
essential to the purity of the teachings themselves. 
Here is a tremendous task for the modern pastor. 



96 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

He must adapt the teachings of Jesus and of Paul, 
in form, to the needs of our day. The teachings 
themselves are eternal and so are as applicable to 
this age as to the apostolic. All truth is beautiful 
and useful. But some truths are better adapted 
to the specific needs of each succeeding age. How 
the pastor should strive to be a "workman that 
needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the 
word of truth" ! How delicate and difficult is the 
task of the modern pastor so to dress the spiritual 
and universal truths of Jesus and Paul as to make 
them attractive and impressive for the people of 
the twentieth century ! To do this he must be, as 
Paul says, "skilful in teaching." Some men need 
one truth to appeal to them and develop in them 
the highest Christian character, others need other 
truths to produce in them the best Christian liv- 
ing. The pastor must be an expert teacher, 
"rightly dividing the word of truth." As Presi- 
dent Faunce 1 says : "The creation and maintenance 
of Christian ideals is the teacher's function. . . . 
This is done chiefly by the slow, silent, irrevocable 
force of Christian Education." 

SOME WAYS THE PASTOR CAN TEACH THE PEOPLE 

But how must the pastor teach the people? Of 
course every sermon should be so filled with truth 
that it is the means of instructing the people in 
the teachings of the gospel as well as a force to 



a The Educational Ideal in the Ministry. 



The Pastor as a Teacher 97 

inspire motives for the higher living of the prin- 
ciples of the gospel. But there are the five fol- 
lowing ways in which especially the pastor may 
teach his people "the Word of God." 

1. In expository preaching. Zwingli aroused 
Zurich to the work of the reformation by expound- 
ing to the people the gospel of Matthew, just as a 
teacher would do it. In a similar way many a 
modern pastor could arouse the people to religious 
thinking and spiritual living if he would give to 
the people skilful, attractive expositions of the 
books of the Bible. The world is hungry for 
truth. The preacher must master the books of 
the Bible and then give the people the truth by 
expository preaching. It must be conceded that 
this is the most difficult method of preaching from 
the preacher's view point. He must know the 
books of the Bible. But this is his business, and 
people need the truths of the Bible. The preacher 
is the divinely appointed man to teach the people. 
This he can effectively do by often preaching ex- 
pository sermons. 

2. By teaching a class in the Sunday School. Of 
course, it is well known that there are arguments 
for and against the pastor's teaching a class in 
the Sunday School. But the following arguments 
for this method of teaching the people far out- 
weigh all the arguments against it: (1) Teaching 
a class in the Sunday School will necessarily make 
the pastor a better Bible student. If he teaches 
acceptably intelligent men or women from Sunday 

—7— 



98 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

to Sunday, he will have to study the books of the 
Bible in a systematic way. (2) Teaching the 
Sunday School class will make the pastor a better 
preacher by giving him more and better material 
for his sermons. His systematic study in the 
preparation of Sunday School lessons will suggest 
to him new texts and furnish fresh material for 
sermons each week. (3) It will also make him a 
better preacher because of the personal contact 
with individuals in the Sunday School class. Al- 
though the pastor cannot teach all his flock in the 
Sunday School class/he will be able to teach enough 
of them to give him the personal point of view of 
the individual layman in his church. This will 
help him to adapt his pulpit message to the actual 
needs of his people. (4) It will make the pastor 
a better shepherd, because it will give him knowl- 
edge of the people's needs. The discussions in his 
Sunday School class will bring out many instances 
of personal need among the members of his flock 
where he can render service as the shepherd. 

3. By teaching a class of Sunday School teachers. 
Every modern pastor should be so versed in peda- 
gogy that he can in person conduct a Sunday 
School teachers' training class. If he cannot, or 
has not the time, he should arrange for some com- 
petent teacher to train a class of Sunday School 
teachers. 

4. By organizing the young people of his church 
into Bible, mission, and social study classes. He 
should either teach these classes himself or have 
them taught by a competent teacher. 



The Pastor as a Teacher 99 

5. By organizing special study classes among 
his 'church members. Each pastor should have, 
at different times, special study classes, in Chris- 
tian doctrines, on the fundamental principles of 
missions, on individual mission fields, on the mis- 
sion of the church to modern society, that is, its 
duties to working men, capitalists, neglected chil- 
dren, fallen women, etc., etc. In a subsequent 
chapter in Part III, we shall discuss the practical 
phase of these various study classes in the church. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

W. H. P. Faunce, The Educational Ideal in 
the Ministry. 

Frank P. Lee, Bible Study Popularized (valu- 
able especially for the last chapter, "Effective 
Means of Promoting Bible Study"). 

George A. Coe, Education in Religion and 
Morals. 



100 Function of Teaching in Christianity 



CHAPTER VIII 

The Sunday School Teacher as a Christian 
Teacher 

Trumbull took the position that the modern 
Christian Bible School can be traced back to the 
Jewish system of Bible schools which were a recog- 
nized agency of teaching God's Word in the days 
of Jesus. He thinks that Jesus was a pupil in 
one of those Jewish Bible schools. He further- 
more thinks that Jesus, in founding His church, 
made Bible School work its basis. By means of 
the Bible School Christianity was first extended 
and churches built. 1 He shows how the church 
adopted the teaching method and probably used a 
Sunday Bible School in extending its teachings in 
heathen communities. Even in the pulpit the 
preacher used the catechetical method. The 
people asked and the preacher answered questions 
during the public discourse. Instruction was a 
prime purpose in the discourse. 

Trumbull quotes Baron Bunsen as saying, "The 
apostolic church made the school the connecting 
link between herself and the world." Trumbull 
thinks that the great Christian School of Alexan- 
dria adopted the teaching methods in use among 
the Jewish teachers and Greek philosophers, as 



1 Yale Lectures on Sunday School, pp. 43, 44, 



The Sunday School Teacher 101 

mediated by the influence of Philo, the apologist of 
the Jews to the Greeks, and of the Greeks to the 
Jews. He quotes Clement of Alexandria as say- 
ing, "By teaching one learns." "Use keeps steel 
brighter, but disuse produces rust on it." "In a 
word, exercise produces a healthy condition both 
in souls and bodies." He also quotes Origen, an- 
other distinguished teacher in the Christian School 
of Alexandria, and many other early church 
fathers, as approving and using teaching methods 
to extend Christianity in the first five or six cen- 
turies of our era. 2 

Trumbull also shows how ritualism overshad- 
owed the Bible School in the later centuries and 
produced the Dark Ages. In the Eeformation the 
Christian Schools were revived. Even the Cath- 
olics in the Counter Eeformation also adopted the 
school idea in the spread of their principles. 3 

There was a decline in religion in the eighteenth 
century, but Zinzendorf and Wesley started anew T 
systematic Bible study among the people. From 
the time of Baikes on, the Sunday School move- 
ment gathered momentum, in England, America, 
and elsewhere. The International Lesson System 
was inaugurated in 1873 and has rendered valuable 
service in unifying the Christian world by giving 
all Christendom the same lesson each Sunday in 
the year. 4 



2 id., pp. 47 ff. 

3 Id., pp. 63 ff. 

4 Id., pp. 97 ff. 



102 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

The methods of modern Sunday Schools are far 
beyond those of the early years of Sunday School 
history. The Sunday School system of Christian 
education has been gradually improving for the 
last twenty years. But we are pleading in this 
chapter for still greater improvements. We are 
just beginning to make the Sunday School the 
mighty engine of usefulness it is destined to 
become. 

THE MISSION OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 

1. To teach the Bible. The Sunday School is 
preeminently the BiMe-teaching department of the 
church. The Sunday School should become the 
Bible Seminary, at least, if not the Theological 
Seminary, of the church. 

2. To shape the character of the young. The 
modern Sunday School, with its Cradle Boll, be- 
gins with the birth of the child, and one of its chief 
aims is to turn the earliest thoughts and impres- 
sions of the child toward God, Christ, the church, 
and the religious life. 

3. To evangelize the young. Many Sunday 
School teachers have always felt the significance 
of the Sunday School in leading the young to 
Christ. The evangelistic aim should be most 
prominent in every Sunday School. Every lesson 
should point, directly or indirectly, to Christ. 
There should be evangelistic days, or decision days, 
as Sunday School specialists call them, on which 
all the forces of the Sunday School should be 



The Sunday School Teacher 103 

turned towards leading the non-Christian portion 
of the Sunday School to the acceptance of Christ 
and the beginning of a religious life. As an ex- 
ample of the success of decision day, we recall the 
fact that on one Sunday in Philadelphia, just a 
few years ago, five thousand boys and girls accepted 
Christ in the Sunday Schools of three hundred 
churches. 

4. To develop Christian character and fit Chris- 
tians for greater service. The Sunday School 
should be made the religious workshop in which 
church members, by actual Bible study and real 
Christian service, may be producing the finest 
product of consecration and service. 

5. To help in the evangelization of the world. 
The Sunday School is not simply a local institu- 
tion ; it is world-wide in its scope. It helps to 
make missionaries out of the boys and girls. It 
should have missionary days, on which great mis- 
sionary heroes and specific mission fields are 
studied. It should train the children in giving 
systematically to missions. 

THE KNOWLEDGE NEEDED BY SUNDAY SCHOOL 
TEACHERS 

In the Sunday School it is with the teachers 
themselves that we are to make, perhaps, the most 
remarkable progress. The Sunday School must 
have competent teachers — teachers that know, in- 
tellectually and experimentally, the basal truths 
of Christianity, and are skilful as teachers to im- 



104 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

part these truths to others. This has not yet been 
recognized by the majority of our churches, nor by 
the masses in even our best churches. Even Mr. 
Trumbull says, "It comes to pass, therefore, not 
only that there is no need to have trained theolo- 
gians as exclusive teachers of classes in the Sunday 
School, but that such persons, if they were avail- 
able, would not be likely to prove as competent and 
efficient teachers of the primary classes in the 
Sunday School, as younger Christians to whom the 
elementary truths of the Bible are, in a sense, 
newer." 5 

There is some truth in this quotation, but there 
is also a dangerous implication. If "trained theo- 
logians" are what they ought to be (I shall attempt 
in a subsequent chapter to show what they ought 
to be), they could, if possessing the natural and 
pedagogical qualifications, teach successfully even 
the primary classes. The danger in Trumbull's 
statement is that it apparently discriminates 
against trained teachers in the Bible School. This 
Trumbull does not mean, as we infer from other 
portions of the same lecture. 

President Mullins, of the Southern Baptist Theo- 
logical Seminary, Louisville, Ky., says, "The Su- 
preme need of our country today is that the forces 
which make for character shall control the forces 
which make for intelligence. 2. One of the great- 
est forces which make for character is the Sunday 
School. 3. The factor in the Sunday School most 

6 Id, p. 217. 



The Sunday School Teacher 105 

potent in the development of character is the 
teacher. 4. The supreme lack in the present day 
Sunday School is the lack of a sufficient number 
of thoroughly trained teachers." 

Next to the pastor the Sunday School teachers 
(including the superintendent) should be the best 
trained persons in the church. What should they 
know? What should they be trained to do? 

1. They should know, as completely as possible 
for each individual teacher, the history of God's 
people, both in the Old and the New Testament 
times. That is, each Sunday School teacher should 
take a course in Old and New Testament history 
and master as thoroughly as he can the great 
epochs of Hebrew and Jewish history, from the 
calling of Abraham, the deliverance of Israel from 
Egypt, the giving of the law, etc., on down through 
the Exile, the return to Palestine, the rebuilding 
of Jerusalem and the temple, the work of Ezra and 
Nehemiah, the closing of the Old Testament proph- 
ecy and canon, the Maccabean struggle for polit- 
ical and religious liberty, the conquest of the Jews 
by Pompey (63 B.C.), the Herodian rule over the 
Jews, and the conditions, political, economic, 
social, moral, and religious, in Palestine during 
the days of Jesus and of the Apostles. 

Then each teacher should take a survey course 
of the history of Christianity from the rise of the 
church and the spread of Christianity to Antioch, 
and under Paul and Barnabas to the Gentiles, 
down through the growth of hierarchy in the early 



106 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

centuries, the union of Church and State under 
Constantine, the great missionary movements of 
early Christianity, the period of stagnation and 
corruption in the Middle Ages, the Keformation 
under Luther, Knox, Zwingli, Calvin, to the rise 
of modern denominations and the far-reaching 
movements of the last century to evangelize the 
world. Such courses would give to the Sunday 
School teacher a broader horizon and make him 
better able to appreciate the truths of Christianity 
and to impart them effectively to Sunday School 
classes hungering for knowledge. 

2. Sunday School teachers should know the gen- 
eral content of each book in the Bible (at least the 
greater and more important). They should take 
a survey course (if unable to take more) on the 
books of the Bible, Old Testament and New Testa- 
ment, studying and learning the author, date, occa- 
sion, purpose, general content, canonicity, etc., of 
each book in the Bible. This would enable the 
Sunday School teacher to get the proper perspec- 
tive for each Sunday School lesson. If the Sunday 
School teacher knows the general teaching and 
purpose of the book from which the lesson is taken, 
he is capable of grasping the meaning of the par- 
ticular lesson which is a part of the whole book. 

3. Each Sunday School teacher should also take 
a few lectures on the history of the preservation of 
our Bible. That is, he should receive a few lec- 
tures on the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts, the 
leading versions, etc., and the marvelous way in 



The Sunday School Teacher 107 

which these manuscripts and versions have been 
preserved in their original purity and how the 
modern scholar in textual criticism seeks to re- 
cover the original words of the Biblical writers. 

4. Each Sunday School teacher should learn the 
principal rules of Biblical Interpretation. In a 
few lessons any average Sunday School teacher 
could learn from a good Bible teacher how to dis- 
criminate between literal and figurative language, 
and especially the simple rules for the interpreta- 
tion of parables ; the further principle that the 
occasion of the book, the purpose of the author, 
the conditions and needs of those addressed, throw 
light on the meaning of any passage in a given 
book. The thorough mastery of a few of these 
elemental principles of interpretation would 
greatly enhance the confidence and usefulness of 
the Sunday School teacher. 

5. Each Sunday School teacher should know 
something of psychology, "the science of the phe- 
nomena of inind." This science tells us, as far as 
investigators have been able to learn by research, 
the laws according to which the mind apprehends 
truth, receives knowledge, exercises and expresses 
its emotions, and puts into practice the great prin- 
ciples learned. What subject more essential for 
the teacher of human souls ! As the machinist, to 
be the most successful manipulator of machines, 
must know the machine to be dealt with, its con- 
struction, laws of operation, etc. ; as the astron- 
omer, to use most profitably the telescope, must 



108 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

know the instrument, its various parts and their 
relations— so must the Sunday School teacher, if 
he is most successfully to appeal to and cultivate 
the various powers of the human soul, know the 
child, the boy, the girl, the man, the woman. That 
is, he must know the laws according to which the 
mind perceives and receives truth, its emotions on 
properly apprehending the truth, and how and 
what motives lead to the practice of the knowledge 
received. 

This course in psychology for Sunday School 
teachers need not be so complete and comprehen- 
sive as courses given in advanced work in some of 
our colleges and universities. Yet we plead that a 
sufficiently complete course should be offered to 
our Sunday School teachers as to equip them with 
an adequate knowledge of the elements of 
psychology. 

6. The Sunday School teacher must know peda- 
gogy, the science and art of teaching. Our 
States do not allow men or women to become 
teachers in the Public Schools until they have 
passed satisfactory examinations on pedagogy. 
Shall the churches do less? Shall we demand less 
thorough equipment of our teachers of the heart 
and the religious life than we do of our teachers of 
the intellect, the hand, and the aesthetic senses? 

Let us be perfectly understood. We recognize 
that we already have some excellent teaching done 
in our Sunday Schools. Yet the great majority 
of the teachers in the country, the small towns, and 



The Sunday School Teacher 109 

villages, are incompetent. The same is true of 
many teachers in city Sunday Schools. They 
neither know what to teach nor how to teach. 
There must be a mighty revolution in the Sunday 
School as to its methods of teaching and the equip- 
ment of its teachers. 

There might be named other profitable courses 
for Sunday School teachers — courses in doctrines, 
in missions, in modern social conditions, etc., etc. 
These might be given later on by the pastors, or 
other trained teachers. But the above outline of 
courses seems absolutely essential to the best 
results in our Sunday Bible Schools. 

Four years ago this author drew up a curricu- 
lum to cover only five weeks a year and extending 
through four years, for Sunday School teacher 
training. He presented it to a large number of 
distinguished Christian educators. All heartily 
endorsed it, but some (the older ones) said it was 
"impracticable." So appears every new instru- 
ment of usefulness until it is tested. 

This problem of Sunday School teacher training 
is so basal and vital that our seminaries, denom- 
inational colleges, and even State schools, perhaps, 
should establish Sunday School Teacher Training 
Schools. At first these might comprise only short 
courses, as indicated above, and continue only 
during a few weeks, on which representative 
teachers of scores of Sunday Schools throughout 
the surrounding country might attend. Of course, 
many young men and women who take regular 



110 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

courses in the college or university should take 
these courses of the Sunday School Teacher Train- 
ing School and thus prepare themselves to teach in 
their home Sunday Schools after their return from 
college. 

These young men and women who have already 
been trained in the Sunday School Teacher Train- 
ing Schools of the colleges and universities might 
establish local Sunday School Teacher Training 
Schools. These should become general, for in 
these local schools all of the Sunday School teach- 
ers might receive special Biblical, psychological 
and pedagogical training. 

We wish to recognize here the advance move- 
ment already begun, to some extent, by our various 
Sunday School boards, especially by Dr. J. M. 
Frost, Baptist Sunday School Board, Nashville, 
Tenn. The books for Sunday School Teachers' 
training which are being turned out by various 
publishing houses are valuable for the better equip- 
ment of Sunday School teachers. But we need 
more specific and more systematic training for 
our Sunday School teachers. That is, we need, 
not only in our seminaries but in our colleges and 
universities, Sunday School Teacher Training 
Schools, in which a more thorough training can 
be given than can be given by the peripatetic 
Sunday School secretary in institutes. 



The Sunday School Teacher 111 

THE NEED OF GRADED SUNDAY SCHOOL COURSES 

The Sunday School can never accomplish its 
purpose in Bible study until it has thoroughly 
graded Bible courses. In this chapter it is not 
our purpose to discuss the objections to the new 
International Graded Lessons. There are many 
and serious objections which have been pointed out 
recently in various periodicals. If the Interna- 
tional Sunday School Committee cannot arrange a 
graded series acceptable to the various denomina- 
tions, then let the denomination whose needs are 
not satisfactorily met, prepare its own Graded 
Sunday School Courses. 

Why should we have graded courses of Bible 
Study in the Sunday School ? 

1. A graded school with graded courses is a 
pedagogical necessity. The child cannot take suc- 
cessfully the same course as the octogenarian, nor 
vice versa. 

2. Graded courses would demand better teach- 
ers. If we have courses grading into each other 
and the pupils are passed on from lower grades to 
higher, it will inspire teachers to greater efficiency, 
especially if the pupils pass from the lower grades 
by examination. 

3. Graded courses in the Sunday School would 
give us more thorough Bible study, which would 
help the young to master the teachings of the 
Bible. Graded courses mean systematic study, 
and it is only by this method that pupils in our 



112 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

day schools can master history, literature, the 
languages, and the sciences. Why should we not 
have the same method in the Sunday School ? 

4. The graded courses in the Sunday School, by 
helping the young to master the great truths of 
the Bible, would thus help in the development of 
stronger Christian character and would lead to 
better Christian service. 

We cannot better close this chapter than by 
giving an excellent quotation from Dr. H. M. 
Hamill : "The way to make the church grow is to 
make the Sunday School go ; and the way to make 
the Sunday School go is to put the trained teacher 
in charge of it." 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Trumbull, Yale Lectures on the Sunday School. 
Hatcher, The Pastor and the Sunday School. 
Schauffler, Pastoral Leadership of Sunday 
School Forces. 

5. H. Green, The Twentieth Century Sunday 
School. 

A. H. McKinney, The Pastor and Teacher 
Training. 

A. K. Wells, Sunday School Problems. 

Brumbaugh, The Making of a Teacher. 

H. M. Hamill, Sunday School Teacher-Training. 

Marion Lawrence, How to Conduct a Sunday 
School. 

J. M. Frost, The School of the Church. 



Teachers in Literary Schools 113 



CHAPTER IX 

Christian Teachers in Literary Schools 

In this chapter we are discussing the teachers of 
the elementary branches, of the languages and lit- 
eratures, of the sciences and philosophy. Have 
these teachers any Christian function? As they 
daily teach their "secular" branches, are they con- 
tributing to the stock of religious thought and life? 
Are they, in any real sense, Christian teachers, 
that is, teachers of Christianity? 

christian teachers in public schools and 
academies 

We need to bear in mind that Christ came to 
save the whole man ; not merely the soul, but the 
body and intellect. It is nowhere said in the New 
Testament that His death is merely for the re- 
demption of our souls. The expression, "the re- 
demption of our body," does occur once in the New 
Testament (Eom. 8 : 23) . The truth of the matter 
is, Christ came to renovate men in all departments 
of their activities, physical, intellectual, aesthetic, 
ethical, social, religious. Therefore, since man as 
a whole is saved by Christianity, any teaching, in 
whatever realm of education or culture, that con- 
tributes to the making of a complete man after 
—8— 



114 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

the Christian model, is Christian. So the teacher 
who teaches spelling, reading, geography, arith- 
metic, physiology, the languages, etc., is contribut- 
ing to the unfolding of the latent powers in his 
pupils, by giving them facts on which to think and 
training them into the more exact expression of 
great thoughts. 

It is almost useless to have Christian teachers 
at home and in the Sunday School on Sunday, if 
our boys and girls, from six to sixteen years of 
age, are to be taught five days in the week by 
un-Christian teachers. If man is a religious 
being (and most scholars concede it), and if 
man cannot realize his best self without religion 
(and nearly all will concede this), and if the 
Christian religion be the highest religion on 
earth (and most scholars concede this), then all 
children should be taught, even in the "secular" 
schools, by Christian men and women. Not that 
these teachers should teach the catechisms and 
creeds of contending denominations. Not that at 
all. They need not name any church in all the 
ten years of the Public and High School period. 
But the basal principles of the Christian religion 
and morality should be incarnated in every Public 
and High School teacher's life. He should teach 
Latin or Algebra, or whatever his department calls 
for, in the lessons of the week, but he should teach 
the beauties of the Christian religion and Christian 
ethics in his daily life. During these ten years 
the boy or girl is plastic clay and the Public and 



Teachers in Literary Schools 115 

High School teacher should be a Christian potter 
to help in moulding Christian character and life 
and destiny. 

CHRISTIAN TEACHERS IN DENOMINATIONAL COLLEGES 
AND UNIVERSITIES 

All teachers in these schools should be Chris- 
tians. The teachers in all departments of knowl- 
edge can and should contribute to the production 
of Christian character and life. The teacher of 
the ancient languages and literatures/ in bringing 
their pupils to the treasure house of the ancient 
world's thought, religious, ethical, social, and phil- 
osophical, by contrast and comparison, may lead 
them to the deeper appreciation of Christian 
truths. The teacher of the sciences, if he be a 
reverent and sincere Christian, by unfolding to the 
minds of his pupils the marvelous laws of life, the 
beauties and wonders of the universe in biology, 
physics, chemistry, and astronomy, prepares his 
class to appreciate more keenly the sayings of the 
Psalmist, "The heavens declare the glory of God ; 
and the firmament showeth His handiwork" (19: 
1) ; "When I consider thy heavens, the work of 
thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou 
hast ordained ; What is man, that thou are mind- 
ful of him ? And the son of man that thou visitest 
him? For thou hast made him a little lower than 
the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and 
honor" (Psalm 8 : 3-5) ; or that sublime saying of 
Paul, "The invisible things of Him since the crea- 



116 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

tion of the world are clearly seen, being perceived 
through the things that are made, even His ever- 
lasting power and divinity" (Romans 1: 20). 

The teacher of art, whether of music, painting, 
or oratory, touches those finest fibers of the sensi- 
bility in the human soul, and in cultivating the soul 
to feel, appreciate, and express the most delicate 
harmonies in the world of sound and color, is pre- 
paring a human soul to feel and appreciate the 
beauties of the Divine Being and to worship "in the 
beauty of holiness" Him whose character is the 
harmonious blending of the highest ethical and 
spiritual qualities. 

Even the teacher of pure mathematics and phi- 
losophy is helping to unfold the thinking powers of 
rational creatures and prepare them for "thinking 
God's thoughts after Him." Every thinking man 
in religion must have a philosophy, however crude 
it may be, at the base of his religion. That is, he 
has a system of thought, however incomplete, on 
which he constructs his general religious ideas, his 
character, and his conduct. A man's mode of 
thinking (this applies only to men who do think) 
determines his theology. Then how grave the 
responsibility of teachers of philosophy in Chris- 
tian colleges and universities! 

Jesus' development, as described in Luke 2 : 52, 
gives us a model for true education and culture. 
He grew "in stature," that is, physically; "in wis- 
dom," that is, intellectually ; "in favor with God," 
that is, religiously; and, as a result of this sym- 



Teachers in Literary Schools 117 

metrical development, He "grew in favor with 
inen" ; that is, in social amenities and in influence 
over His fellows. This is ever the rule. Man 
must grow from all four angles of his being, phys- 
ical, intellectual, religious, and social. When one 
is approaching the highest growth in all four 
realms of being, he becomes an "all-round man," 
strong in body, supple in thought, responsive in 
religious sensibilities, and influential in social and 
ethical life. 

Is such a man the product of the Sunday School 
teacher only? Is such a man produced by pulpit 
ministrations alone, or by domestic training 
merely, or by the rudiments of knowledge learned 
in Public or High Schools? He might be pro- 
duced by only one group of cultural forces, pro- 
vided nature had done an extraordinary w-ork for 
him at the start. But usually, especially now in 
the complications of modern civilization and social 
development, such a symmetrical character must 
be the result of a blending of forces. Among the 
conspicuous forces at work are those put in motion 
during the period of the college course. 

The psychological fact must be borne in mind 
that the young man (true also of the young 
woman) from the age of sixteen to twenty, or 
twenty -two (the normal period of college life) is 
unmooring from his past and launching out into 
a new thought world. Up to this time the lad has 
been limited, largely, to the environment of home, 
town, or community. Up to sixteen he has been 



118 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

in the period of imagination and imitation. Father 
has been the only great man. Mother has been the 
only lovely woman. Their words have been author- 
ity. This is the ideal, of course. But now the 
youngster enters another world the day he boards 
the train for college. New scenes greet him. 
He begins to see a bigger world. He meets strange 
people. He comes to know great men, and great- 
ness fascinates him as never before in his boyish 
dreams. In the classics he enters the thought- 
world of the Greeks and Eomans. Their civiliza- 
tion, religion, ethics, and philosophy claim his 
thought. He begins to ask, Are we moderns 
really superior to those ancient heroes, warriors, 
orators, painters, sculptors, authors, and philos- 
ophers? Is our religion the only religion, or did 
those ancient celebrities have a religion that helped 
them? 

Again, when he takes up physics, chemistry, 
biology, geology, and astronomy, and the wonders 
of the natural world begin to open up to him, how 
the world grows larger! As he studies the laws 
of Kepler and Newton and sees the unity of the 
physical universe, studies steam, sound, light, elec- 
tricity, and beholds the wondrous discoveries of 
Watt, Edison, Marconi, and others, new worlds of 
thought hang on the horizon awaiting his discov- 
ery. Then he peeps into astronomy, looks through 
the huge telescope, studies Mars' canals, Saturn's 
rings, the Milky Way, and distant stars, and be- 
hold, a thousand worlds seem to beckon him on to 



Teachers in Literary Schools 119 

even greater discoveries. As he studies biology, 
the plants and the animals, from the fern and 
fungus, amoeba and jelly-fish, up to man, and sees 
the striking similarity between the physical struc- 
ture of the lower animals and of man, he begins to 
compare the biological account of the world and 
of man with that of Genesis. Ah! here is the 
strategic point in the young man's religious and 
ethical life. Will he doubt the teachings of his 
mother, who has often told him the stories of the 
creation and the fall, how God made the universe, 
all the forms of life, and last of all, man, in six 
days; how Adam and Eve, though placed in a 
paradise of beauty and sinlessness, were not satis- 
fied, but broke the Maker's simple law, "Ye shall 
not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and 
evil," and thus fell from their state of pristine 
innocence and happiness to a state of sin and 
misery and death ? 

This is the crisis in the young student's life. He 
needs a Christian teacher to teach him biology, a 
teacher who believes in a personal God, who made 
man next to Himself, yet, as a Moral Euler of the 
Universe, punishes the violation of His laws. If a 
sober, sane Christian teacher guides the ambitious 
biological investigator across these first chasms of 
strange knowledge and weird experience, he will be 
anchored more securely to the Book of books and 
to the simple faith of father and mother in a great, 
loving, and righteous God. He may have to 



120 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

slough off some of the drapery of the crude faith of 
his childhood and boyhood, but as he presses down 
his foot of faith he will find the solid Kock of Ages 
unmoved and unmovable. 



RELIGION ESSENTIAL TO THE HIGHEST CHARACTER 

Character is the highest goal of human ambition 
or achievement. The best character must be an 
all-round character. An all-round character must 
be a character developed in all the realms of a 
man's being. Then, if man be a religious being, 
as all scientific investigators admit (Darwin stat- 
ing that in all his travels he scarcely ever found a 
savage so low as not to have a religion), how can 
the young man attain to the best character without 
cultivating the religious side of his nature? No 
more than you can have a perfect race horse with- 
out training him as a trotter. As trotting is the 
principal sphere in which a race horse attains his 
best character, so religious and ethical thinking 
and living constitute the principal sphere in which 
a man attains his highest character. 

Moreover, Christianity is almost universally con- 
ceded to be the world's best religion. Hence, if the 
young investigator in physical, chemical, and bio- 
logical laboratories, in classical class rooms, and in 
philosophical studies, is to obtain the most symmet- 
rical religious character, he must have Christian 
ideas and ideals kept constantly before him during 
the educational crisis of his life. Hence, the im- 



Teachers in Literary Schools 121 

portance of earnest Christian teachers in Christian 
colleges to shape the thoughts and lives of young 
men and young women in the crisis of life. 

THE PERSONAL TOUCH OF GREAT CHRISTIAN TEACHERS 

It is not the theories taught by the teacher, the 
books covered, the languages learned, or the sci- 
ences mastered, that contribute most to the making 
of the real life of the young student. It is a great 
personality touching the young plastic soul, as the 
sculptor touches the rough marble, shaping it into 
the finest religious and ethical character. A life is 
the strongest magnet to attract another life. A 
beaming Christian life in a college teacher is the 
mightiest magnet to lift the young student out of 
himself into a higher self. A thoroughly conse- 
crated college teacher becomes a North Star to 
guide his struggling students over the seas of col- 
lege doubts and perplexities into the haven of sim- 
ple faith in the Father God, who is above and be- 
hind His universe. The Christian college or uni- 
versity teacher, at the close of their earthly career, 
may belong to — 

"The choir invisible 
Of those immortal dead who live again 
In minds made better by their presence ; . . . 
In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, 
And with their mild persistence urge man's search 
To vaster issues." 



122 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

SOUL WINNING IN THE CHRISTIAN COLLEGE 

The Christian teachers and Christian students 
make a wholesome and elevating religious atmos- 
phere in the college circle. This atmosphere will 
produce great revivals at times. This is a part 
of the desired fruitage of Christian college life. An 
evangelistic preacher preaches the simple gospel 
and offers salvation by personal faith in Christ 
the Saviour of sinners. Scores, and sometimes 
hundreds, of students accept Christ as Saviour and 
Lord, and this step marks a crisis in their religious 
and ethical living. What a blessed thing is a 
great revival in a Christian college! How it 
helps some young Christians struggling with 
doubts because of new things learned at college to 
settle down on a real religious basis, faith in a 
personal God, in Christ as a personal Saviour, and 
the Christian life as the highest form of living! 
How it inspires the faithful teachers to work more 
enthusiastically for the fuller realization of their 
religious ideals! How it encourages the loyal 
Christian students and makes them greater lights 
in the college firmament to point their non-Chris- 
tian fellows to Christ, "the Bright and Morning 
Star"! 

CHRISTIAN TEACHERS IN STATE COLLEGES AND 
UNIVERSITIES 

A brilliant young lady graduate from a secular 
college recently said, "They give us a psychology 
without a soul, a science which excludes the neces- 



Teachers in Literary Schools 123 

sity of a creator, and an ethics which is based on 
the unstable will and inclination of the multitude." 
Is it necessary that these conditions should prevail 
in our state schools of higher education? Does 
the spirit of investigation in the sciences demand 
that our state schools shall repudiate the ele- 
mental religious and ethical teachings on s which 
the world's greatest scholars, in the main, would 
agree? In order to learn new truths, must we 
abandon all old truths? In order to climb higher 
in the tree of knowledge, must we cut off the stem 
and branches below us? Are not some of the old 
truths which constitute the trunk and lower 
branches of the world's tree of knowledge necessary 
to the life and growth of the tree itself? 

On the other hand, we must never clip the wings 
of inquiry in our state schools, as Eoman Cathol- 
icism has sought to do in its educational centers. 
Such a course would do two things, as it has done 
in Eoman Catholic countries: produce a danger- 
ous reaction, like the modernist movement in the 
Roman Catholic Church, and incite disgust in the 
minds of thinking men for all church systems and 
church religion. 1 We can and should have liberty 
of thought and of speech in all our institutions of 
higher education. Our great investigators in the 
natural sciences should be free to penetrate the 
unknown jungles of the natural sciences, in order 
to discover and apply to the amelioration of man- 

1 On the subject see L. H. Jordon, The Study of Re- 
ligion in Italian Universities 



124 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

kind the beneficent forces and laws created by a 
loving God. 

But, we ask, cannot all this be done in reverence 
to, and to the glory of, the Christian religion? 
Last year the papers and magazines created much 
excitement in the religious world by quoting the 
conclusions of an alarmist who had visited many 
Northern and Eastern universities. It is doubt- 
less true, as claimed by this alarmist, that in some 
universities North and East, as also in England 
and on the continent of Europe, the teachings of 
the Christian religion are suffering because of the 
reckless conclusions of some scientific investigators 
who teach in these institutions. 

How are we to remove these pathological 
symptoms in our state colleges and universities? 
Not by destroying liberty of research, but by bring- 
ing wholesome religious teachings to the considera- 
tion of the students in these institutions. Let the 
directors of these state schools, most of whom, in 
many instances, are Christian men, employ rever- 
ent Christian scholars as teachers in these 
schools. The man who scoffs at the Christian re- 
ligion is not properly qualified to teach the youths 
of the land, however much biology, or geology, or 
physics, or chemistry, or astronomy, or psychology, 
he may know. 

Many (perhaps a majority) of the students in 
state schools are from Christian homes. Let the 
denominations chiefly represented in the college or 
university circle establish churches in close prox- 



Teachers in Literary Schools 125 

irnity to the university campus, and place in these 
pulpits the brainiest, most scholarly, and most 
consecrated preachers. This is being done with a 
marvelous success in some of our Southwestern 
Universities. On this subject of religious educa- 
tion in state institutions, see further a discussion 
of P. W. Kelsey, entitled, "The Problem of Ke 
ligious Instruction in our State Universities." 2 

Do we not need another "protest" — not like that 
of Luther, to ecclesiastical anarchy and corrup- 
tion — but a "protest" to the anarchistic tendencies 
and corruption inevitable under the extreme non- 
religious teachings of a few skeptical teachers of 
science? If the Christian religion is worth hold- 
ing and living anywhere, it is valuable in the 
classical and scientific circles of our most re- 
nowned state institutions. 

PREPARATION IN THE SCHOOLS FOR FUTURE SERVICE 

The Christian teacher, in denominational or 
state institutions, is, or should be, a mighty factor 
in the production of Sunday School teachers and 
superintendents; capable, cultivated, and conse- 
crated fathers and mothers to give birth to and 
train a superior generation of Christian thinkers 
and workers; physicians and nurses to alleviate 
human pain and increase the hygienic happiness of 
man; preachers and missionaries to proclaim the 



2 Published in Education and National Character by 
the Religious Education Association, 1908, 



126 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

good news to all the race. Indeed, the time has 
come when the Christian teacher in our higher 
educational institutions ought to be instrumental 
in making even daily working men, the blacksmith, 
the artisan, the farmer, the dairyman, the wood- 
sawyer, etc., nobler Christian citizens, living to 
bring about that ideal society described in the 
Sermon on the Mount in which love to God and 
man is the regulative principle of thinking and 
living and acting. 

CHRISTIAN TEACHERS IN THE SCHOOLS OP HEATHEN 

LANDS 

There are Christian schools in China in most of 
its leading cities — namely, Canton, Shanghai, Foo- 
chow, Hangchow, Nanking, Peking, etc. China 
and Japan are already beginning to employ Chris- 
tian teachers in various departments even in their 
state schools. The officials have observed the 
beneficent influence of Christian education in the 
missionary colleges, and so are employing Christian 
teachers in their state institutions. The Y. M. C. 
A.'s of China are constantly being sought by school 
officials to suggest teachers for their state institu- 
tions. Moreover, several thousand Japanese and 
Chinese youths are every year studying in the uni- 
versities of Christian America and Christian 
Europe. If our Christian teachers in these insti- 
tutions do their duty, they will send back to Japan 
and China thousands of educated young Japanese 
and Chinese to teach in the state schools of the 
Orient. 



Teachers in Literary Schools 127 

i 
There are also Christian schools in India, Mex- 
ico, Brazil and other heathen lands. Likewise, 
the state institutions of these countries are begin- 
ning to employ Christian teachers. The Christian 
teacher is rapidly becoming one of the mightiest 
missionary forces in the world. This point will be 
elaborated in Part III. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

L. H. Jordan, Study of Eeligion in Italian 
Universities. 

Lowry, Keligious Education in the Institutions 
of Higher Learning in China. 

Martin, The Awakening of China. 

E. N. Hardy, The Churches and Educated Men, 

George A. Coe, Education in Eeligion and 
Morals. (Contains a valuable bibliography on 
the subject.) 

W. J. Tucker, Personal Power (sermons to stu- 
dents at Dartmouth College). 

In Addresses and Proceedings of the National 
Education Association, the following papers are 
valuable : 

Barnes, Moral Training Through the Agency of 
the Public School, pp. 129ff. 

Sharp, Some Experiments in Moral Education, 
pp. 141f. 

Lindsey, Childhood and Morality, pp. 146f. 

Lindsey, Moral Training, pp. 940f. 

Call, Moral Enthusiasm in the Making, pp. 232f. 

Mrs. Cabot, Moral Training in Schools, pp. 239f. 



128 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

Tonilins, Music as a Moral Influence, pp. 245f. 

Abercrombie, The American Peril, pp. 248f. 

Fordyoe and Main, How to Develop the Inner 
Community Life of the College or University, pp. 
5351 

Phillips, Character Building the Foundation of 
Education, pp. 936f. 

Religious Education, December, 1909, contains 
suggestive articles on Character Development in 
the schools, by Profs. Votaw, Dawson, Soares, 
J. Stanley Brown, J. H. Greenwood, John H. T. 
Main. 



Theological Teachers 129 



CHAPTER X 

Theological Teachers 

Systematic study of the Bible was pursued first 
by the gnostics, and then the Christian School of 
Alexandria adopted a similar method, though the 
philosophical rather than the historical method of 
Bible study prevailed in Alexandria, even under 
those famous teachers Clement of Alexandria, 
Origen, Didymus, et al. Exegetical study of the 
Bible characterized the Christian School at An- 
tioch, where exegetical lectures were delivered by 
such teachers as Lucian, Diodorus, Theodore, et al. 
The Nestorians established at Msibis a school for 
the scientific study of the Bible. 

Moreover, the monasteries kept up regular Bible 
study and for a long time the monastic Bible 
schools were the only distinctive Bible schools in 
existence. In 1215, however, the Lateran Council 
decreed that in each cathedral school at least one 
theologian should be appointed to teach the priest 
and others the Bible. In most of the high schools, 
colleges, and universities prior to the Beformation, 
the Bible was not taught. The work of the Befor- 
mation stimulated Bible study, and Bible courses 
began to be added to the various school curricula. 
From the days of A. H. Francke and his assistants 
in Leipzig the study of the Bible has occupied a 
—9— 



130 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

chief place in the Protestant schools of Germany 
and other Christian countries. In the modern 
German universities specialization in Bible study 
is apparently carried to extremes. 1 

Distinctive Theological or Biblical teaching has 
become more general in the last twenty-five years. 
There were in the United States, in 1909, one hun- 
dred and fifty-six theological seminaries. There 
were also two hundred and sixty-two denomina- 
tional colleges and universities, two hundred and 
nineteen Protestant and forty-three Roman Cath- 
olic. That is, over one half of the colleges and 
universities in the United States (about four hun- 
dred and eighty in all) are denominational. Now, 
it is safe to say, though the exact figures are not 
to be had, that nearly all these Christian colleges 
and universities have theological or Bible depart- 
ments manned by theological teachers who teach 
the English Bible, and in some cases, additional 
classes in theology, homiletics, and missions. In 
a few cases, classes in the Greek New Testament 
and the Hebrew Old Testament are taught. 

In the one hundred and fifty-six seminaries there 
are 1,348 teachers who teach exclusively Biblical 
and theological sciences. 2 Perhaps there are five 
hundred other Biblical and theological teachers 
in the various denominational institutions. With 
this marvelous increase in the number of theolog- 

1 Hastings' Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. 
II, pp. 592f. 

2 World Almanac. 1910, pp. 470f. 



Theological Teachers 131 

ical teachers, Christianity should find a mighty 
leverage for turning the modern world to Christ 
and religious thinking and living. Moreover, the 
enlargement of the sphere of Biblical and theolog- 
ical teaching ought to count for much in shaping 
the religious thinking and living in this and suc- 
ceeding centuries. In the colleges and universities 
the theological teachers have the opportunity to 
come in touch with the mass of students in litera- 
ture, the sciences, and philosophy. 

THE RELATION OF SCIENTIFIC, PHILOSOPHICAL, AND 
THEOLOGICAL TEACHERS 

Should the scientific and philosophical thinking 
regulate the theological thinking of modern times, 
or should the theological thinking determine scien- 
tific and philosophical thinking? Perhaps neither 
part of this disjunction is inevitable. It is not 
desirable that a theology born in the early or 
middle ages, hostile to scientific research and 
built, often, on false philosophical premises, should 
have complete control over modern scientific and 
philosophical research. On the other hand, it is 
equally undesirable that modern science and phi- 
losophy should assume the ultimate authority to 
dictate to modern theology its premises and con- 
clusions. 

What is the true modus vivendi between modern 
scientific, philosophical, and theological teachers? 
Each group of investigators should confine itself 
to its own realm and contribute to the world all 



132 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

that is possible to be found out, but neither group 
of scholars should presume to dictate the line of 
procedure for the others and denounce as false all 
conclusions reached in the other groups. If, how- 
ever, one group has methods of research which are 
valuable and practicable for research in the other 
groups, it would be the part of wisdom for the in- 
vestigators in the other realms to try those meth- 
ods. To illustrate: if the inductive method of 
research has proved successful in the realms of 
natural science and philosophy, why should not the 
theological investigator ( I use this term to refer to 
all seminary teachers and teachers in Bible depart- 
ments of colleges and universities, who are really 
searching for truth from the Scriptures and seek- 
ing to adapt it to modern social and religious 
needs) employ the same method of bringing in the 
facts from Scripture, moral philosophy, sociolog- 
ical science, and Christian experience, and then 
upon these gathered facts build a theological 
system adapted to modern religious needs? 

On the other hand, if theology has contributed 
to the world's knowledge some basal religious con- 
victions and some elemental theological and ethical 
truths which will help men arrive at truth in the 
physical, religious, or ethical spheres, why should 
not the natural scientist, the philosopher, and the 
sociologist take account of these universal religious 
principles (at least, regard them as working 
hypotheses, as natural scientists have ever done — 
e. </., the principle of gravitation was at first a mere 



Theological Teachers 133 

hypothesis which was afterwards established to be 
a universal law) ? If there are intellectual and 
spiritual forces at work in history and in the 
world, is the natural scientist loyal to all the 
facts, if he shuts himself up in his little physical 
realm and builds all his hypotheses without regard 
to the psychological and religious facts which are 
teeming in the realms unexplored by him? If 
God's universe is a harmonious w T hole, and we have 
some grounds for thinking it is, since it came from 
one Intelligent Mind, 3 and seems to have a definite 
purpose in its existence, why should not the phys- 
ical phenomena be interpreted in harmony with, 
if not in the light of, psychological and religious 
phenomena ? Can w T e be sure that we have reached 
logical conclusions in any one of these three realms 
of research, the physical, the psychological, and the 
religious, unless we give due weight to the facts of 
the other realms? Do w^e not see even in one 
realm of research, that of natural science, that the 
w r ork of specialization according to which one man 
confines himself to a very small segment of the 
circle of natural truth, often does injustice to other 
departments of physical science? Thus the phys- 
icist, the chemist, the biologist, or the astronomer, 
by shutting himself up in his own department, 
does injustice to the other departments and often 
does violence to established facts in the other 
departments of natural science. 



1 See Rashdall, Philosophy and Religion, p. 20 



134 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

Let all investigators be scientific, in its broadest 
sense; that is, be true to all the facts. This is the 
constant contention of natural scientists. Let all 
investigators, scientific or theological, practice 
what they preach — be scientific, taking into ac- 
count all facts so far as possible to be known. Let 
them give all the facts, not a part, their due weight 
when they are reaching conclusions, either in the 
physical, psychological or religious realms. Es- 
pecially, let the teachers of natural science bear in 
mind what Prof. L. T. More, University of Cin- 
cinnati, says: 4 "The day may come when a new 
war may arise between science and religion on the 
issue that the hypotheses of science are too meta- 
physical to be of value. . . . Science, in other 
words, like philosophy, has no ontological value. 
Should not the men of science clearly recognize 
this fact, and confine their efforts to the legitimate 
function of science, the discovery of natural phe- 
nomena and their classification into general laws 
derived by logical mathematical processes?" 

CHARACTERISTICS OF THEOLOGICAL TEACHERS 

This leads me to say that theological teachers 
should be men of broad scholarship, and most of 
them, we are glad to say. today are distinguished 
for their eminent scholarship. They know, not 
only much theology, the old and the new, but they 



4 Art, Atomic Theories mid Modern Physics, The Hib- 
bert Journal, November, 1009. 



Theological Teachers 135 

are conversant with the history and general con- 
clusions of the physical and psychological sciences. 
Of course,, the theological teacher is not teaching 
the physical or psychological sciences, nor is he 
constructing his theology on their conclusions. 
But if he would be true to all the facts, so far as 
they may be known, it is worth the theologian's 
while to know the trend of thought in the physical 
and psychological sciences, as well as all the theo- 
ries and tendencies of theological thought. But 
it is happily the case that most of the theological 
teachers recognize with Francis Bacon : "A little 
philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but 
depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to 
religion." 

But the theological teacher is a specialist in the 
realm of the Bible and its practical application to 
human hearts and lives, human society and history. 
Hence, the theological teacher has always special- 
ized for the mastery of his Bible, so far as possible. 
He feels that he is not qualified to teach it, or sys- 
tems of theology supposed to be based on it, until 
he has a thorough knowledge of what the Book of 
books says to men. He is conscious that he should 
study it with the best helps and by the most helpful 
methods, old or new, and give the Bible writers a 
chance to say what they meant to say. 

The theological teacher should be scientific — that 
is, true to all the facts contained in the Bible — 
before he makes his personal conclusions as to the 
system of truth he is to teach to the world. He 



136 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

should not let his own preconceived ideas from the 
physical and psychological sciences, or from medi- 
aeval philosophy, predominate in shaping his theo- 
logical conclusions. Since th£ Bible is what it is, 
our guide in religious and ethical thinking and 
living (some will not accept this view, I am 
aware), we cannot be loyal to all the facts unless 
we are sure we know all, or nearly all, the facts, 
the Bible truths, or are sincerely striving to dis- 
cover them, when we shape our theological system 
which we as theological teachers are supposed to 
be teaching the world. 

It is needless to insist that the theological 
teacher should know the general history and devel- 
opment of the theological thought of Christianity 
from Jesus and Paul to the present moment. "His- 
tory repeats itself." This is true religiously as 
well as politically. Nearly all the modern "isms" 
find their embryo in the thinking of early or medi 
seval Christianity. Arius paved the way for the 
modern Unitarian views as to the person of Christ. 
Pelagius, in holding that the babe is born into the 
world as blank, religiously and ethically, as the 
piece of paper, prepared the theological world for 
all those schools of modern thought that minimize 
the reality of man's sinfulness. Marcion, with his 
penknife in hand, clipping out all the early gospels 
and epistles except Luke and the Pauline Epistles 
in a mutilated form, gave the hint to modern de- 
structive criticism. 



Theological Teachers 137 

Of course, the theological teacher is a lover of 
truth. The ancient Greek philosophers maintained 
that men should love and search for truth for 
truth's sake. There is a moral beauty in truth. 
Truth is desirable in itself. The theological 
teacher should be as sensitive to truth, in whatever 
realm, physical, psychological or theological, as 
the painter is to the lines of beauty in a famous 
masterpiece of painting, or the musician, to the 
harmonious notes of the lowest, highest, or most 
delicate sounds. 

He must be an original investigator. The theo- 
logical teacher is not a pack-horse, laden with all 
the old theological theories of the past and bring- 
ing them to the men of today. He must be a fresh 
thinker. He should go to the sources of theology, 
his own religious consciousness, general Christian 
experience, but above all, to the Bible, our only 
reliable guide in religious and ethical matters. 

The theological teacher must also be a man of 
acute spiritual sensibilities. Most of his truth is 
in the purely spiritual realm. He must have an 
open ear to the voice of the Spirit. His nature 
should be deeply responsive to every impression 
which spiritual truths can make on human spirits, 
for "they are spiritually examined" (1 Cor. 2: 14, 
margin of Am. Eev.). If the theological teacher 
keeps open only the intellectual, and shuts the 
spiritual, ear, he will miss much of the spiritual 
truth which God meant for men to know and love 
and teach and live. 



138 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

He must be humanitarian, social, evangelistic, 
and cosmopolitan. He loves and learns and 
teaches truth, but men are greater than truth. 
Truth is the means to the end, and the end is men 
in fellowship with God. Hence, the theological 
teacher loves men, as well as truth, and longs to see 
men accept Christian truths and live the Christian 
life of service and sacrifice. He loves the souls, 
minds, and bodies of men, and so he wants men 
saved completely, body, mind, and spirit. He 
should be no narrow nationalist, but a cosmopol- 
itan. He loves all men — Mongolians, Malays, In- 
dians, Africans, as well as Caucasians, because he 
feels that all men were made "of one blood," "in 
the image of God," and that all men can become 
children of the one common Father. 

THEOLOGICAL TEACHERS AND THE CHURCHES 

The theological teachers must bear in mind that 
they are the servants of the churches. Theological 
or divinity schools ought to be in the most intimate 
relationship with the churches. The seminary is 
a creation of the churches. It is true that indi- 
viduals usually start the theological seminaries. 
But then the churches in sympathy with the theo- 
logical views of the founders make possible the 
theological seminaries which are absolutely de- 
pendent on the churches for their existence, patron- 
age, and financial support. If rich individuals 
sometimes endow them, these individuals are 
church men, and it is the church, in the final anal- 



Theological Teachers 139 

ysis, that makes possible the theological seminary. 
Hence, the theological teacher is responsible for 
his teachings to the churches that make possible 
his institution. Of course, the churches do not 
and should not rob the theological teacher of the 
right of individual thinking. Freedom of thought 
within certain lines is a right possessed and a 
privilege enjoyed by every theological teacher. 
And yet the theological teacher has no right to put 
forth teachings subversive to the elemental teach- 
ings of Christianity and destructive to the dis- 
tinctive doctrines of the churches supporting the 
theological seminary in which he teaches. 

On the other hand, he is the leader in the reli- 
gious thinking and living of the churches. The 
theological teacher is a specialist in religious 
thinking, and, of course, should know more reli- 
gious truth than the average church member, or 
even the average pastor. He is bound by spiritual 
laws to lead the churches along the avenues of 
truth into greater usefulness and spiritual living. 

THE THEOLOGICAL TEACHER AND THE MASSES 

But is there any tie that binds the theological 
teacher to that struggling mass of humanity out- 
side the churches, many of whom are hostile to the 
churches? To be sure, this leader of religious 
thought should investigate social conditions and 
become acquainted with the needs of modern soci- 
ety, as well as the needs of the individual. Tt 



140 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

goes without saying that, when he knows the 
needs of modern society, his heart is with 
the struggling masses. He cannot agree with 
all the religious and theological notions of 
the daily toilers in the industrial world, yet 
he sympathizes with them in their burden- 
bearing and will try to shape the propositions of 
Christian truth so as to reach them and relieve 
their strained economic and social conditions, as 
well as to conduce to their better religious and 
ethical living. 

Moreover, the theological teacher's sympathies 
for the masses should be so expressed that he may 
have an easy access to the ears, hearts, and homes 
of the struggling people. It was said of Jesus, 
"the common people heard Him gladly." How 
true this statement should be of every theological 
teacher who stands high in the circles of responsi- 
bility for giving the world its religious and ethical 
teachings ! 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

J. S. Mills, Essays on Religion. 
G. J. Romanes, Thoughts on Eeligion. 
E. Y. Mullins, Why Is Christianity True? 
Rashdall, Philosophy and Religion. 
William James, Varieties of Christian Expe 
rience. 
'Josiah Royce, Spirit of Modern Philosophy. 
John Fiske, Cosmic Philosophy. 



Theological Teachers 141 

W. N. Kice, Christian Faith in an Age of Science. 
H. VanDyke, The Gospel for an Age of Doubt. 
James Orr ? Christian View of God and the World. 
Henslow, Christ No Product of Evolution. 
Aubrey Moore, Science and the Faith. 
J. H. Kennedy, Natural Theology and Modern 
Thought. 

J. Iverach, Christianity and Evolution. 



PART III 

The Function of Christian Teachers 

(143) 



Moral and Spiritual Truth 145 



CHAPTER XI 

Teaching Moral and Spiritual Truth 

In the remaining chapters of this book we con- 
sider the chief part played by Christian teachers in 
the shaping of human character, life and history. 

teaching men to know god 

Jesus in His intercessory prayer says, "And this 
is life eternal, that they should know Thee and Him 
whom Thou didst send, even Jesus Christ" (John 
17: 3). If it be objected that this is from the 
Johannine gospel, we quote from the Synoptics: 
"All things have been delivered unto me of my 
Father: and no one knoweth tLe Son save the 
Father; neither doth any know the Father save 
the Son and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to 
reveal Him" (Matt. 11: 27). 

Jesus assumed the possibility of man's knowing 
God. He came to reveal God. "He that hath seen 
me hath seen the Father." John assumes this in 
identifying the historical Jesus with the Logos. 
He became the Word, the expression of God's char- 
acter and purposes as related to men. All this 
means that God can be known and that the his- 
torical Jesus actually revealed Him in His incar- 
nation. 

—10— 



146 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

Of course, it is not to be claimed that finite men 
can know the Infinite God in all His perfections. 
We can sympathize, somewhat, with Kant's follow- 
ers, who claim that we do not know "things in 
themselves" but only in their relations. But it is 
illogical to deny that we can know God at all on 
the basis of Kantianism, because we cannot "know 
things in themselves." If we cannot know God 
except in His relations to us as Creator, Provider, 
Upholder, Energizer, Father, do we not learn some- 
thing about Him in meditating on, and in expe- 
riencing, any one or all of these relations to us? 

Nor can we deny the possibility of knowing God 
on the basis of Hegelianism, namely, by laying it 
down as a premise that God must be Absolute if 
anything at all ; that He is not a God unless He be 
Absolute, and that the Absolute includes all real- 
ity, even moral evil. In reply, we say, God may 
be absolute in perfection, and yet knowable, for 
as Dr. Johnson says, 1 "Perfection is definite, know- 
able, and excludes every form of evil." We shall 
never in our finite sphere be able to know all God's 
perfections, but that does not deny the possibility 
of our knowing something of His ethical excel- 
lencies and spiritual perfections. 

Yet, we must concede that there is a Christian 
agnosticism. 2 In other words, there are limita- 
tions to our knowledge of God. The Athenian in- 
scription, "To an (the) Unknown God," may be 

1 Systematic Theology, p. 6. 

2 See Johnson, Christian Agnosticism. 



Moral and Spiritual Truth 147 

applied to our God by the twentieth century theo- 
logian as aptly as by Paul in his address on Mars' 
Hill. In a certain sense He is, and forever will 
be, to finite minds, "The Unknown God." We 
cannot drop our line of research to the bottom of 
the absolute knowledge of God's nature, relations, 
and works. Some things about the nature of His 
being, His fatherhood, His scheme of redemption, 
His providence in human life, we can never know 
as long as the veil of flesh conceals from us the 
exact realities of the spirit world. But does this 
limitation of our knowiedge of God preclude our 
investigation of His purposes, His relations, and 
His ways to man ? Not at all, any more than the 
inability of the school boy at ten to grasp all the 
hypotheses of science and the various systems of 
philosophy would preclude his pursuit of language, 
geography, arithmetic, etc. 

KNOWING GOD THROUGH NATURE 

Now, what is the first function of the Christian 
teacher in the twentieth century? La Place, 
when asked concerning his nebular hypothesis, 
"Where is a place for God in your hypothesis?" 
replied, "I have no need of a God in my hypoth- 
esis." In some scientific circles there is a tendency 
to agree with La Place that in this age of scientific 
thinking we have no need of a God. Is there not 
some fine work to be done by Christian teachers of 
natural science and other teachers in colleges and 
universities to adjust the relations of modern sci- 
ence and religious knowledge? 



148 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

The Psalmist, in a burst of rapture, as he con- 
templated the wonders of the heavens, exclaimed, 
"The heavens declare the glory of God; and the 
firmament showeth His handiwork" (Psa. 19: 1). 
The Apostle Paul, in arguing that the Gentiles are 
without excuse for their immoralities, on a basis 
of their possessing a knowledge of God, says, "For 
the invisible things of Him since the creation of the 
world are clearly seen, being perceived through the 
things that are made, even His everlasting power 
and divinity" (Eomans 1: 20). That is, th£ 
Bible itself teaches that men can learn of God by 
deciphering the handwriting of nature's pages. It 
is not the highest knowledge of God that nature 
gives. In our nature studies of God we are only 
in the kindergarten and grammar school of theol- 
ogy. But does this minimize the importance of 
the study of God in nature? Not in the least. 
What the child learns in the kindergarten and 
grammar schools is only fragmentary knowledge, 
but it is fundamental knowledge. Can the boy do 
the high school, college and university work before 
he has prepared himself in the primary schools? 
Then can we appreciate the higher courses of divine 
knowledge before we have learned what nature 
teaches us about God? 

WHAT DOES NATURE TEACH US CONCERNING GOD? 

1. "His Godhead." That is, nature teaches that 
there is present in all His scheme of cosmos, well 
ordered and harmonious in its movements, some- 



Moral and Spiritual Truth 149 

thing more than the physical. There is a "divin- 
ity" in the operations of nature. Mere physical 
force did not and could not produce all the results 
we behold in cosmos. And if it did, whence came 
the physical force? Did it originate itself, or is 
it eternal in existence? In either case we have 
something more than the physical. You have the 
basis of the Christian's God, namely, eternity of 
being, and the latent forces in this being as "the 
First Cause" of the universe. 

Nor does it explain the universe to say that evo- 
lution accounts for all things. Is evolution a 
cause or a process? Did evolution make anything, 
or is it merely the process by which some things 
have been, and are being, made? How could a 
mere process produce anything? Are cosmos, life, 
mind, conscience, religion, history, the products of 
a process? Bather would it not be nearer the 
truth to say, adequate causes, under the direction 
of an Intelligent Mind, by the process of evolution, 
produce the cosmos, life, mind, conscience, religion 
and history? What is the objection to calling 
that Intelligent Mind "the Godhead," or God? 

2. Nature teaches us the "everlasting power" of 
the Godhead. That is, nature does not presume to 
account for its existence in and through itself. 
Nature points to "the everlasting power," the 
power that existed before the cosmos in its present 
form of beauty and wonder. Nature seems to lift 
her voice against the self-existence of the universe 
and declare the existence of an eternal power as the 



150 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

adequate cause of cosmos and all life connected 
with it. This is Paul's explanation of nature. 
Shall we not as Christian teachers today emphasize 
this religious teaching from nature's book? 

3. Nature teaches us "the glory of God." "The 
heavens declare the glory of God." As we study 
physics and its laws, from gravitation on to those 
of wireless telegraphy and telephony; chemistry 
and its laws of affinity and combination ; biology 
and its secrets and processes of life; geology and 
the history of the earth's formation ; astronomy 
and the wonders and harmonies of the planets, 
satellites, meteors, comets, suns, and systems, do we 
not remove our shoes and stand with bare head in 
awe of the Glorious One who can and does achieve 
such wonders? Do we not feel with Mrs. 
Browning, 

"Earth's crammed with heaven, 
And every common bush aflame with God, 
But only he that sees takes off his shoes"? 

Let all Christian teachers teach the young that, 
while gazing at the wonders of nature's laws, 
forces, and phenomena, they may "look up through 
nature to nature's God." 

KNOWING GOD THROUGH OUR MORAL SENSE 

The moral argument claims that we can know 
God by our moral sense. In this way we know not 
only the existence but also the character of God. 
On the premise of our moral intuitions reason tells 



Moral and Spiritual Truth 151 

us that there must be a great moral Archetype for 
man the moral creature. If there is moral law in 
man, there must be a moral sense in man which acts 
according to moral law. The very presence of 
moral law in man proves, at least analogically if 
not directly, that there must be a moral Law Giver. 
Now, if there exists, as our moral sense tells us 
there must exist, a great moral Model for man, it 
is rational to suppose that we can know this 
morally excellent Being by our moral sense. 
Though Helen Keller possesses not the senses of 
sight, hearing, or speech, she does possess, in a 
remarkable degree, the moral sense, and by its 
exercise she enjoys the sweetest fellowship with 
God. 

There is a tremendous modern movement in the 
realm of ethics. There are numerous "Ethical 
Culture Societies" in America, Great Britain, 
Germany, Japan, etc., whose motto is, "The Pri- 
macy and Independence of Ethics/' "to assert the 
supreme importance of the ethical factor in all the 
relations of life, personal, social, national, and in- 
ternational, apart from all theological and meta- 
physical considerations." This Ethical Culture 
movement was started in New York when the 
New York Society of Ethical Culture was estab- 
lished by Felix Adler in 1876. The leaders of 
this movement make ethics their "religion." An 
atheist may be a member in this society, and even 
the theist who belongs to it says, my motto is, 



152 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

"Deeds, rather than creed"; "my duty is in rela- 
tions to men rather than to God." 

This ethical reformation is desirable and no re- 
ligionist should cast reflection on real ethical 
movements. No theologian regards creed as suffi- 
cient without deeds to express the creed. We can 
serve God in serving men. In feeding orphans, 
cheering widows, and caring for the poor in gen- 
eral, we glorify God. That is, religion on its 
practical side is ethics. But is ethics religion? 
Can we have religion without a God? Never, in 
any true sense. True ethics is the child of reli- 
gion. To have a true ethics you must have a 
lofty standard of right and duty. Can we find 
in man a standard ultimate and universal ? Must 
we not go to the Divine, the Infinite, to find our 
ultimate and universal standard of ethics? If 
so, how can we have a perfect ethical system en- 
tirely dissociated from religion? 

Let us teach the students of our high schools, 
colleges, and universities that religion (belief in, 
thinking, acting, and living in the light of, the 
Deity) is the basis of true ethics and that the 
practice of true ethics is divine culture ; that the 
Christian God is also the God of ethics, the God 
of perfect moral excellencies, at once the source 
and standard of the highest moral achievements. 
Let us learn and teach anthropology and ethics, 
but let us see God in anthropological develop- 
ments, and come to know Him better as we look 
up through ethics to God. 



Moral and Spiritual Truth 153 

KNOWING GOD THROUGH THE BIBLE 

Let us ever bear in mind that in a real sense 
God speaks to men in and through the progress- 
ively unfolded teachings of the Old and New 
Testaments. No man, or group of men, unaided 
by the Divine, could have produced such a book as 
our Bible. It is a historical fact that no man or 
group of men has produced its equal, from the 
literary, ethical, or religious, point of view. The 
works of Confucius, the Zend Avesta, the Vedas, 
and the Koran, the- greatest sacred books known, 
are not the equal of our Bible. What made the 
differences? Is it that the Jews were by nature 
the religious geniuses of the human race, as some 
would claim, and because of their natural reli- 
gious genius produced the best sacred literature 
of the world? Grant that. But how can we 
account for the special religious genius of the 
Hebrew prophet and priest, king and peasant, and 
of the Jewish Christian apostle, prophet and 
teacher? We must go back to the Divine to find 
the ultimate cause of the superiority of our Bible 
over the sacred literatures of the ethnic religions. 

Are its truths local and limited, or universal 
and final? Was it goodi for Jesus and Paul, 
Polycarp and Justin, but is not sufficient for the 
thinkers of the twentieth century? Do not its 
fundamental central teachings furnish deep and 
broad enough basis on which the twentieth cen- 
tury thinker may stand? Are there any truths 



154 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

surpassing those of the fatherhood of God, the 
kingdom of God, and the brotherhood of men? 
Does the advanced sociologist, or ethicist, or 
scientist, or philosopher, need any higher truths 
than these with which to solve the problems of 
the intellectual, social, ethical, and religious life? 
Then let us teach the Bible in the twentieth 
century — in our homes to our children, in our 
kindergartens, primary and grammar schools, 
colleges, and universities, as well as in our theo- 
logical seminaries. Let us teach it as literature, 
for it does not suffer when compared as literature 
with the classical literatures of Greece and Rome, 
Germany and France, Great Britain and America. 
Let us teach it as more than literature, as the 
record of the highest religious and ethical strug- 
gles through which men have passed. Let us 
teach it as the voice of the Father God speaking 
to His children, and blazing the upward path into 
the realization of the spiritual and ethical char- 
acter of God Himself. 

KNOWING GOD IN HISTORY 

We do not mean to charge God with doing 
everything that history records. But even in the 
evil processes of history we can see "a far-off 
divine event toward which the whole creation 
moves." He was in the selection of Abraham 
and his seed as a medium of communicating the 
highest knowledge of Himself to men. He must 
have been in the strange career of Joseph, sold in 



Moral and Spiritual Truth 155 

Egypt? but at last becoming the economic saviour 
of the country and of even the chosen people in 
Palestine. He was truly in the career of Moses, 
from the banks of the Nile to the peaks of Nebo, 
caring for hini, training him, calling him, and 
using him for the deliverance and early develop- 
ment of the chosen nation. He used young David 
to unite the scattered tribes and make a consol- 
idated nation, and Solomon to unify them further 
in the construction of the temple. He overruled 
even the divisions of Judah and Israel, and the 
consequent exile to teach Israel the glories of 
monotheism, that the idols are vain things and 
Jehovah only is God. In the hellenization and 
the partial unification of the various tribes and 
nations through Alexander and his successors, 
God must have been at work, though indirectly. 
In the counter Maccabean movement, in which 
Judaism w^as saved from being swallowed up in 
hellenism, God's hand is clearly seen. In the uni- 
fication of the Roman Empire under Augustus we 
see God preparing for the birth of the Messiah 
the Prince of Peace. 

Thus all through history, even in the Dark Ages, 
we can catch glimpses of the Divine Hand at 
work, until we see Him moving in the Renaissance 
and Reformation, the fall of Constantinople, the 
discovery of America, the invention of the print- 
ing press in the same century. Here we behold a 
harmonious converging of diverse forces for the 
elevation' of men intellectually, socially, morally, 



156 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

and religiously. Who can say it is not the hand- 
writing of God on the pages of history ? 

God seems to have been in the battle of Quebec 
in which the English and Protestant, not the 
French and Catholic nation, asserts its supremacy 
among the nations. 

In the victory of the Thirteen Colonies of 
America and the establishing of the world's great- 
est republic, the home of civil and religious liberty, 
we must feel with Washington and Franklin that 
it was the God of battles who made possible this 
issue of the American Revolution. Here He has 
prepared for Himself a mighty religious power for 
the building of the kingdom among men. More- 
over, as Victor Hugo felt and expressed it, God 
was in the downfall of Napoleon at Waterloo. 

Coming down to our own times, who cannot see 
the operations of God in the defeat of Spain by 
the United States and the consequent liberation 
of Cuba and Porto Rico; in the defeat of the 
Boers by the British in South Africa, and the con- 
sequent triumph of civilizing and Christianizing 
forces in the Dark Continent ; in the discomfiture 
of Russia by the Japanese, the triumph of the 
advanced Western civilization over absolute mon- 
archy and the retrogressive forces of Greek 
Catholicism? 

Who does not see the operation of the Divine in 
the modern peace movements — the efforts by sci- 
entists, educators, philosophers, statesmen, and 
even politicians, as well as Christian laymen and 



Moral and Spiritual Truth 157 

preachers, to blot out war from human history 
and bring in the reign of international, universal 
peace? 

It might easily be shown that God is at work 
even in unenlightened nations, China, India, 
etc.; yea, even in uncivilized Africa and the 
islands of the Pacific. As Paul expressed it in 
his sermon in Pisidian Antioch, God has "not 
left Himself without witness" (Acts 14: 17). 

Let us Christian teachers teach all our students 
to keep the eye open for God as He moves on the 
pages of history; to recognize His handiwork in 
the movements of the nations and the progress of 
civilization. As Carlyle says, "All history is an 
articulate Bible, and in a dim, intricate manner 
reveals the divine appearance in this lower 
world ; for God did make this world and does for- 
ever govern it; the loud, roaring loom of time, 
without its French Bevolutions or Jewish Bevela- 
tions, weaves the vesture thou seest Him by." 

KNOWING GOD THROUGH JESUS CHRIST 

All schools of theology, whatever be their theory 
of Jesus' person, regard Him as the highest revela- 
tion of God. He showed men by living, as well 
as taught them by parables and simple discourse, 
that God is Father, and then that men may be His 
children by becoming Christ's disciples. He was 
love. God is love. The Father plans and works 
to help the helpless, relieve the suffering, make 
strong the weak. Jesus did the same. "My 
Father worketh until now, so do I." 



158 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

A man is the highest value on earth because he 
may be the son of God. Hence, it is right to help 
a suffering man on the Sabbath. Men are greater 
than institutions, because men are personal, moral, 
spiritual beings like God. Because men may be 
sons of God they are (ideally) brothers. We 
should think of the poorest, most ignorant, most 
degraded man as our brother. We must love 
him, whether or not he loves us. We may love 
him into divine sonship. He has divine possibil- 
ities in him. The Jove touch, from God and from 
man, can bring these possibilities to realization. 

Then let us study and teach the life and teach- 
ings of Christ in order to learn God better. Let 
us teach them in the home, the school, the Sunday 
School, from the pulpit, in colleges and universi- 
ties. Though Jesus taught in fragments, he lived 
in completeness, ethically and religiously. So 
what is lacking in His positive teachings may be 
learned in His life of love and service. "He is the 
way and the truth and the life." He is the way 
to approach God the Father. Being the embodi- 
ment of moral and spiritual truth, it all blends in 
His character and scintillates in His life. He is 
the force and inspiration to the real spiritual and 
ethical life. Hence, we cannot know God best 
unless we learn Christ first. 

KNOWING GOD EXPERIMENTALLY 

Experience as a process of knowing God is not 
distinct from the other five methods discussed in 



Moral and Spiritual Truth 159 

this chapter. Xone of the other five methods can 
be perfectly applied without experience. It is the 
method par excellence of knowing God. Jesus 
uses the word ginoskein, to know experimentally, 
when He speaks of our knowing God. Men come 
to know r God best by finding out His presence and 
power, love and care, in their daily lives. After 
fifty years of experience in which a man has 
proved that God is his Father, loves him and pro- 
vides for him, then he really knows God. Mere 
rational knowledge of God is unsatisfying. Mere 
intellectual apprehension of a First Cause, or a 
Prime Mover of the universe, is not a sufficient 
knowledge of God. We must feel that the First 
Cause is an operating cause in our own characters 
and lives. We need to be persuaded that the 
Prime Mover of the universe is not only the Prime 
Mover in the production of our natural lives, but 
also of our spiritual lives, that He took the initia- 
tion of bringing us into fellowship with Himself 
through the incarnation of His Son and the re- 
demption in Him. 

Prof. William James says, 3 "Keligious thought 
is carried on in terms of personality, this being in 
the world of religion the one determining fact. 
Today, quite as much as in any previous age, the 
religious individual tells you that the divine meets 
him on the basis of his personal consciousness." 
This is the experience of thousands who tell us 
that God as Father meets them in the daily rounds 

3 Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 491. 



160 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

of life, helps them overcome the evil and achieve 
the good, and in their spiritual intercourse with 
their heavenly Father they experience the purest 
joys of life. Then let Christian teachers every- 
where teach our youths that God is best known, 
just as heat is known, by coming close enough to 
Him to feel Him ; that if we would see God best, 
we must open our spiritual nature to Him, just as 
we must open the physical eye to see the light of 
nature. Let them show the young how the intel- 
lect may ask questions and cast doubts, where the 
spirit rests in peace in its spiritual experience ( 
with God as Father and with Christ as Saviour, 
teacher, elder brother ; but when the clouds lower 
and catastrophes come, that the intellect will 
nestle down by the trusting spirit and rest quietly 
on its irresistible conclusions and assurances. 

SOME BASAL SPIRITUAL AND ETHICAL TRUTHS TO BE 
EMPHASIZED 

But we are not discussing truth philosophically. 
It is not truth in the abstract, but some great 
concrete truths, which we wish to urge upon the 
Christian teachers of today. 

1. The Personality of God. Christianity will 
have lost much if it ever yields to some modern 
scientific tendencies and banishes the personal 
God from His universe. The Christian cannot 
worship the impersonal forces of nature as God 
and be elevated and blessed. A pantheistic Chris- 
tianity will be a "milk and cider" Christianity. 



Moral and Spiritual Truth 161 

Jesus taught men to pray to a personal God when 
He taught us to pray, "Our Father who art in 
Heaven." Contrast this prayer with that of Prof. 
Henry Smith, Oxford, who is under the influence 
of materialistic philosophy: 

"Oh, glorious Stream of Tendency ! 
We raise our souls to thee, 
Who out of primal jelly-fish 
Hast made such folks as we." 

2. The Eighteous Sovereignty, or Kingship, of 
God. This doctrine was the climax of theology 
when Jesus taught that God is our Father. But 
the pendulum of theological thought is swinging 
to the other extreme today and men are emphasiz- 
ing only the fatherhood of God. It is just as 
true of God's character that he is King. He is 
the righteous Sovereign of the universe. Hence, 
there must be a system of moral laws regulating 
this universe — law^s as inexorable as the laws of 
His physical universe. If this be true, He must 
punish sin. If He is not a perfect executive of 
the moral laws of His universe, He is not a perfect 
King; nay, He is not righteous at all. But we 
can have no God with perfect moral excellencies 
without righteousness. Kighteousness is the bal- 
last for creening love. 

Let us teach the perfect Christian God. Let us 

not delude ourselves into believing that God can 

love the sinner without punishing his sin, that He 

can be the perfect Father without being a right- 

—11— 



162 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

eous King. Let Christian teachers teach this 
great truth to the twentieth century students. 

3. The Reality and Destructiveness of Sin. 
The hypothesis of evolution is so fascinating 
that it has swept some Christian thinkers off their 
feet. It regards everything physical, intellectual, 
moral, and religious as proceeding by the unfold- 
ing process to higher and higher conditions and 
activities. But where does sin have a place in 
such a hypothetical scheme? It is merely a 
necessary evil, "good in the making." It is a part 
of the process of development into the highest 
ethical and religious attainments by man. It is 
true we may be Christian evolutionists. Evolu- 
tion as a process, not a cause, is a charming theory 
and may be the method by which God, often, 
though not always, works. But we should not 
let our theory of evolution minimize the essential 
evil nature of sin. Sin is the destructive force in 
the individual and social life. 

4. The Saviourhood of Jesus Christ. He 
came to seek and to save that which was lost. He 
came to save sinners, even the chief of sinners. 
We may differ as to how he saves. Perhaps it will 
be intellectually necessary that thinking men differ 
as to the method by which Christ saves men from 
sin. But the fact that He can save and does save 
should be taught with renewed emphasis in the 
twentieth century. He is the medium of deliver- 
ance from sin and development in righteousness. 
Men cannot, by heredity, culture, or ethical attain- 



Moral and Spiritual Truth 163 

ments, work themselves up to the ideal Christian 
manhood which is acceptable to God and approved 
by men. The Divine Spirit must come into men 
before they can be delivered from sin. The Divine 
Spirit comes into men through the mediation of 
Christ. "The life which I now live in the flesh I 
live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God 
who loved me and gave Himself up for me" (Gal. 
2:20). 

5. Jesus and Paul and John are the world's 
greatest ethico-religious teachers. Jesus spoke as 
the Son of God; Paul and John, as interpreters 
of Jesus, spoke from God a religious and ethical 
message needed for the first century of our era. 
But did they speak universal truths applicable to 
the social and religious needs of the twentieth 
century — for China, Japan, India, Africa, Amer- 
ica, Europe, and even Germany? This will be the 
crux of the modern theological problem. Men are 
claiming today that Jesus was the best teacher 
that could have spoken to the men of the first 
century, but not the best for the twentieth cen- 
tury; that Paul and John are altogether too ab- 
stract and theological to be of religious and ethical 
worth to the practical scientific men of the twen- 
tieth century. This is not only the claim of 
Ethical Culture Societies, but even nominal Chris- 
tian teachers and theologians are beginning to 
teach the relativity and insufficiency of the teach- 
ings of Jesus and Paul. Let not Christian teach- 
ers belie the name they bear. Let them hold up 



164 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

Christ as the world's supreme teacher and Paul 
and John as the truest interpreters of Him, His 
spirit and His teachings. Not that Jesus has 
spoken teachings applicable to every detailed prob- 
lem of the modern social world. But He uttered 
principles of religion and ethics which are uni- 
versal and which must therefore be applicable to 
twentieth century life and conditions. 

6. The Kingdom of God. God's will is the norm 
of human conduct. That is, men ought to do the 
will of God, ought to be in the kingdom of God, 
He is the Sovereign of the universe. But He is 
also Father. Hence, we do not sacrifice our inde- 
pendence or personality in submitting to His will 
as the standard of law in the moral world. All 
men should do the will of God. 

7. All Men are Akin. We have the same Father 
(ideally, but really, also, if we choose it so). 
Hence follows that beautiful truth of the brother- 
hood of men. Let us teach the kinship of all men, 
white, black, yellow, brown, and red. Men ideally 
constitute one great family. We should love all 
men, even those who hate us, even the uncultured 
heathen. "Love is the greatest thing in the 
world," said Drummond. Paul said so before him, 
and Paul was simply interpreting Jesus. Love is 
the fulfillment of the moral law. All the law is 
included in these two commandments, "Thou shalt 
love the Lord thy God . . . and thy neighbor 
as thyself." 

Let us teach love to all^the orphan and widow, 



Moral and Spiritual Truth 165 

the lame and blind, the deaf and dumb, the rich 
and poor, the prince and peasant, the cultured and 
ignorant, the savage and the civilized. Love 
sweetens the toils of life and binds communities, 
states, and nations with the only bonds that never 
break. 

"Then let us pray that come it may as come it will for 

a' that, 
For a' that, for a' that, 
That man to man the world o'er 
May brothers be for a' that." 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

John Fiske, Through Nature to God. 

Helen Keller, The Story of My Life. 

F. P. Lee, Bible Study Popularized. 

Orr, Eevelation and Inspiration, Chapters IV, 
V, and VII. 

Borden P. Bowne, Personalism. 

Borden P. Bowne, The Immanence of God. 

H. W. Clark, The Philosophy of Christian Ex- 
perience. 

William Elder, Ideas from Nature (The Design 
Argument for God in Nature). 

A. M. Stewart, The Crown of Science, the Incar- 
nation of God in Mankind. 

John Wilson, How God Has Spoken ; or, Divine 
Eevelation in Nature, in Man, in Hebrew History, 
and in Jesus Christ. 

See also Standard Systematic Theologies, by 
Johnson, Strong, W. N. Clark, Brown, et al., on 
the possibility of knowing God. 



166 Function of Teaching in Christianity 



CHAPTERJXII 

Directing the Religious Thinking of the 
World 

Emerson said, "Beware when the Great God 
turns loose a thinker on this planet." Alas ! this 
is often exactly what we ought to do when a 
thinker is turned loose on this planet. But the 
Great God Himself is a thinker, judging from the 
splendid adjustments in the universe. Hence, He 
is not likely to put a discount on a sane, progress- 
ive Christian thinker. He does turn loose great 
thinkers, and when He does the world does not 
need to heed Emerson's exhortation, "Beware." 
There is no danger from true Christian thinkers, 
for God turns out such in His world. They will 
not imperil at all the old theories that are worth 
keeping. They will show us the futility of the 
incorrect and useless hypotheses which we have 
been holding. They will give us correct laws of 
thought and workable modes of procedure in social, 
ethical, and religious life. 

This is an age of awakening thought. Some 
have dubbed this age, "the age of materialism." 
Materialism is prominent in this age because of the 
great discoveries in natural science and the conse- 
quent inventions, which are helping to develop the 
hidden resources of nature. But materialism is 



Directing the Religious Thinking 167 

not so much the characteristic of this age as think- 
ing is. Men are doing more thinking at the begin- 
ning of the twentieth century than ever before in 
the world's history. There need be no exception 
made as to the period of the Eenaissance and 
Eeformation when letters and religion took on new 
life, because men were waking from the stupefac- 
tions of intellectual night during the Dark Ages. 
Nor was there more thinking done by the ante- 
Nicene fathers on the problems of the person of 
Christ in the second and third centuries than is 
being done today. 

The issuance, within the last century, of Hegel's 
philosophy, the rise of the Tubingen School, headed 
by~Baur, who attacked the genuineness and authen- 
ticity of so many of the New Testament books, 
and the publishing of Darwin's "Origin of Spe- 
cies" and "Descent of Man," which gave a new 
impetus to scientific research and put the word 
evolution to echoing around the world (even in 
philosophy, sociology, ethics, and religion) have 
contributed vastly to the whetting of an universal 
appetite for thinking. The new philosophy of 
Hegel found its way into religious and theological 
circles. The startling publications of Baur 
shocked the religious nerves of the world, and put 
the theologians to digging deeper to find the basis 
of New Testament authority. The announcement 
of Darwin's theory of evolution was one of the 
most far-reaching publications issued in the last 
century. It has penetrated every nook and corner 



168 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

of the thinking world. Every class of investi 
gators, from the speculative philosopher down to 
the practical sociologist, uses the evolutionary hy- 
pothesis as a working basis in all research. Even 
conservative Biblical and theological thinkers and 
writers, who would deny any inroads by evolution- 
ary ideas into their processes of thinking, never- 
theless have unconsciously adopted some of its 
suggestions, and speak and write about the "pro- 
cesses of development" in the divine revelation in 
the Bible and in the history of Christianity. 1 The 
conservative scholar shuns the word evolution, but 
thinks in the concept of its synonym, development. 
All this shows which way the thought breeze is 
blowing in this age. It reflects the extensive influ- 
ence of evolutionary hypotheses upon modern 
religious and theological thinking, 

THEOLOGICAL RECONSTRUCTION 

Some of the old forms of theology must give way 
for new expressions of truth more consonant with 
modern methods of thinking. The statements of 
theology given us by the ante-Nicene fathers and 
the mediaeval scholastics are, per se, no more 
authoritative than statements of theology con- 
structed in the twentieth century. Moreover, 
these old formulas of theology are obsolete for the 
thinkers of the twentieth century. That is, the 
forms of the thought are obsolete, not necessarily 



L Orr, Revelation and Inspiration, pp. 39-43. 



Directing the ReUgious Thinking 169 

the thoughts themselves. Men are moving in a 
new world in the twentieth century and think in 
different concepts. 

Why have reconstruction in theological propo- 
sitions? 

1. Because modern theologians are better 
equipped for stating theological propositions for 
our day than were the theologians of former gen- 
erations. It is not claimed that we have greater 
theologians than Origen, Augustine, Anselm, 
Thomas Aquinas, Calvin, and others, but our 
Biblical teachers and theological thinkers of today 
ought to have a better understanding of the Scrip- 
tures and a keener insight into modern social and 
religious needs than any group of theologians of 
former generations could have. In other words, 
modern theological teachers, if not absolutely 
superior to the old theologians, are relatively 
superior ; that is, are more capable of constructing 
theology in propositions suitable to the needs of 
men today. 

2. The demands of modern scientific research 
must not be ignored by theological thinkers. The 
scientific investigator is reaching more men than 
the theological teacher. I suppose, if we could 
take the census of the men influenced by natural 
scientists and Christian theologians, we would find 
that the scientific investigator is affecting more or 
less the thinking of one hundred people where the 
theological teacher is directly affecting only one. 
Again, the teacher of science reaches first, usually, 



170 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

those whom the theological teacher does reach. 
That is, all our theological students who take col- 
lege and university courses (even many who do not 
take degrees) come under the influence of teach- 
ers of natural science before they go to the semi- 
nary. Moreover, the teachers of natural science 
get hold of these young men in the more plastic 
period of their lives. They have them from seven- 
teen, eighteen, or nineteen to twenty-one, twenty- 
two, or twenty-three years of age. These years 
are the critical years in the formation of a young 
man's methods of thinking and system of thought. 
Then what can the theological teachers do? 
Must they discard all that the teachers of nat- 
ural science have taught the young theological 
student? Must they accept it all? Neither 
course is necessary or desirable. The wise course 
for the theological teachers, it seems to us, is to 
accept whatever the facts of natural science de- 
mand, and then shape their theological proposi- 
tions accordingly. Notice, we have said, accept 
whatever the facts, not every vague hypothesis, of 
natural science, have proved. That little couplet, 

"Be not the first by whom the new is tried, 
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside," 

is applicable to the theological teachers in dealing 
with modern scientific thought forms. They 
should not be "carried about, tossed to and fro, 
by every wind of teaching'' in the realm of natural 
science. But wherever natural science has fairly 



Directing the Religious Thinking 171 

well demonstrated certain propositions as true 
(and there are many cases of such scientific cer- 
tainties) theological teachers should concede these 
propositions to be true, and if possible, so shape 
theological propositions as to harmonize with the 
propositions of scientific truth. 

Nature is from God. The Bible is from God. 
If both are properly interpreted, there can be no 
conflict. There may be points where finite reason 
cannot make the adjustment, but there can be no 
real conflicts between the logical conclusions of 
the fair-minded natural scientist and those of 
the candid theological teacher. Probably there 
will always be points where they must fail at 
adjustment, but there can be no conflict. 

Even modern conservative theologians — e. gr v 
Strong, W. N. Clarke, Johnson, Brown, and 
others — have conceded the necessity of recon- 
structing theological statements in harmony with 
the actual demonstrations of natural science. 
The radical theologians have gone to extremes in 
yielding to the dictates of the natural scientist. 
The mediating school of theological thought has 
gone farther than the conservative theologians in 
adjusting theological statements to the commonly 
accepted demonstrations of natural science. 

But we must hasten to mention the danger to 
which we are exposed in the reconstruction of our 
theological propositions. What are some of these 
dangers? 

1. The truth may be compromised in restating 



172 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

it. Truth is the goal of the investigator, whether 
he be a teacher of natural science or of the Bible. 
Truth must not be sacrificed in the theological 
reconstruction of the twentieth century. In 
cracking the shell of the hickory-nut, it is hard 
to keep from breaking the meat. But it may be 
that some theological truths need to be broken up, 
so the working man can better digest and assim- 
ilate them. But the danger is that we may let 
some of the basal Christian truths be compro- 
mised in breaking the old theological shell and in 
reshaping our theological propositions. Theolog- 
ical thinkers must be cautious at this point. 

2. There is the danger of losing loyalty to old 
truths in giving up the old terminology. For in- 
stance, there is a danger that if we give up the 
term "total depravity" (which does not occur in 
the Bible), that we will lose somewhat the proper 
sense of sin as the transgression of God's law and 
as the force of evil which incapacitates man for 
moral and spiritual reclamation apart from the 
help of the Divine. This is not necessarily so. 
We need not call that helpless state in which sin 
places the sinner "total depravity," and still be- 
lieve in and teach the helplessness of man, unaided 
by the Divine Spirit, to extricate himself from 
the meshes of sin. 

We might illustrate this reconstruction in theo- 
logical terminology ad infinitum. The point we 
mean to emphasize is, modern Christian teachers 
must direct in the reconstruction of modern re- 



Directing the Religious Thinking 173 

ligious and theological terminology. We cannot 
leave it to the scientific and philosophical investi- 
gators to direct the reshaping of theological 
phraseology. The theologian and Bible teacher 
should be able to speak with authority (relative, 
of course) in the realm of theology. The scien- 
tific man claims authority to utter his conclusions 
as to natural phenomena. The theologian can 
justly claim, if he is a competent, reverent spe- 
cialist in his department, to say what shall be the 
results of the modern theological reconstruction. 

DANGERS FROM MATERIALISM 

We do not mean to intimate that this is an age 
of materialism. It is the eye of pessimism that 
sees only the rush toward the maelstrom of mate- 
rialism. He who has an eye for spiritual matters 
must see in the modern educational, sociological, 
missionary, and evangelistic movements something 
more than the operations of materialistic forces. 

Yet, there are two grave dangers to which the 
religious thought of the United States is exposed. 
The first is, that if we allow the rush toward 
material prosperity to absorb us too much, we 
shall, as a people, lose the sense of the religious 
and spiritual. If a musician ceases to listen to 
the purest classical music and to practice produc- 
ing the best of which he is capable, he will soon 
find his delicate sense of music diminishing. So 
the painter. So with a nation of musicians or 
painters, as with Italy which cannot boast of her 



174 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

superior musicians and painters as in the days 
of Michael Angelo. So it is with the religious 
sense, whether it be in the individual or in the 
nation. Our nation must not become too much 
intoxicated with the discoveries in natural re- 
sources, the consequent inventions, and the mate- 
rial prosperity resulting therefrom. While we 
are building sky-scrapers and finding the North 
Pole, irrigating the deserts of the West so that 
they become gardens of flowers and fruits, and 
learning to navigate the boundless seas of the air, 
we must keep the minds of our people on religious 
and ethical achievements as more beneficial to the 
people and to the race. While the number of 
multi-millionaires is multiplying and vast for- 
tunes of gold are being amassed, the Christian 
teacher's function is to teach the people that it 
is not the treasures of gold, but those of good 
deeds, that will last and count through the ages 
of eternity. 

A second danger from material prosperity and 
progress in physical discoveries and inventions is 
that we shall come to think of this splendid age 
as good enough for us, and live only for the pres- 
ent. We live for that of which we think con- 
stantly. If we think largely of the physical 
achievements of this age, we live to enjoy or in- 
crease those physical achievements. 

Let us bear in mind the truth of the statement 
made by William James : "The reason is that, so 
long as we deal with the cosmic and the general, 



Directing the Religious Thinking 175 

we deal only with the symbols of reality; but as 
soon as we deal with private and personal phe- 
nomena, as such we deal with realities in the coni- 
pletest sense of the term." It must not be for- 
gotten that man is more than animal. He is an 
immortal being. He is destined to live in another 
age and in another sphere where the opportunities 
for discovery and development will be greater 
than in this age and in this life. Season, as well 
as the Bible, tells us this. So the Christian 
teacher has a significant function in directing 
the thinking of this age along religious lines. He 
can impress. the students of the age, and through 
them the masses, that man, who is a being of two 
worlds, should live not only for the present but for 
the next world; that he should improve this age 
and this life merely as a stepping stone to higher 
development in the age to come. 

BEGINNING IN THE HOME 

This directing of the religious thinking of the 
world has to begin in the home. Christian 
parents have the first chance to shape the reli- 
gious thinking of the young life. They drop the 
first ideas into the mind and make the first im- 
pressions on the sensibilities of the child. The 
first years of the child's life are "the tide in the 
affairs of men which, taken at its flood, leads on 
to fortune." Who that have under their tutelage 
an immortal child in these first years have ever 



176 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

awakened to the tremendous responsibilities of 
their function and the eternal issues hanging on 
their success or failure? 

The Christian parents of tomorrow, as they be- 
come more and more imbued with the spirit of 
this progressive age, will begin to teach the child, 
not only that there is a God, but also that the 
loving Father God, who was great enough to 
make the worlds in the past, is still working in 
His world through the laws of nature, ethics, and 
religion. If the growing child receives this kind 
of instruction in his first years, when he goes to 
college and hears the startling hypotheses of the 
teachers in geology, biology, and astronomy, his 
faith in God and in the utility of religion will 
not be shaken. 

In other words, as the world progresses and 
Christian parents become better educated, we 
shall see the processes of reconstruction in re- 
ligious and theological thinking taking place in 
the home in the first courses taken by the growing 
child. If we can raise up a few generations of 
Christian parents in sympathy with this progress- 
ive age and yet loyal to all the old basal teachings 
of Christianity, we shall have solved many of 
the religious problems of college and university 
life. As Phillips Brooks says, "He who helps the 
child helps humanity with a distinctness, with an 
immediateness, which no other help, given to 
human creatures in any other stage of their 
human life, can possibly give again." 



Directing the Religious Thinking 111 

CONTINUING IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL AND THE 
CHURCH 

The Sunday School teachers of the future gen- 
erations will be, not only better Bible students, 
but also better psychologists and pedagogues. 
They will also be more in sympathy with the 
progress of this age. Hence, they will continue 
the work of progressive Christian parents. Even 
now our Sunday School literature is borrowing 
(even in most conservative circles) illustrations 
and methods from the physical and psychological 
discoveries of the age. Since God makes Himself 
known in nature and in the soul of man, why 
should not the Sunday School teacher let God 
speak to him from nature and the laws of the 
human mind, and with this up-to-date knowledge 
instruct the ambitious boy and girl in such a way 
as to put them in sympathy with the useful 
progress of the age, and at the same time be fully 
loyal to the elements of Christianity? All Sun- 
day School leaders (some more than others) are 
beginning to see that this is the only possible and 
psychological method to pursue, in order to hold 
the coming generations of the young and tie them 
on to the religious and ethical principles of Chris- 
tianity. 

PATIENT TEACHING IN THE COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY 
PERIOD 

This is the most critical period for directing 
the religious thinking of the world. If all 
—12— 



178 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

parents were Christians, and if all Christian 
parents would properly train their children for 
college and university careers, so much would not 
devolve upon the Christian teachers in colleges 
and universities. But this is not an ideal world. 
So the Christian teachers in colleges and univer- 
sities will always have much to do in shaping the 
religious thinking of young men and young 
women. Scientific research is fascinating, and 
there is an almost irresistible charm in some of 
the conclusions of modern science. The Christian 
teacher need not teach the young men and women 
to close their ears to "the music of the spheres" 
and their eyes to the beauties of true scientific 
theories. The modern college student need not 
become an Ulysses who must stop his ears while 
going through the college or the university, in 
order to keep from being charmed into evil by 
the siren music of scientific research. The Chris- 
tian teachers of the sciences should teach the laws 
of nature with deference to God, the soul, and 
religion. There are other great facts in God's 
world besides its laws of attraction and repulsion. 
The Christian college teacher can "overcome evil 
with good." This is the only logical way to do it. 
We cannot shut up the young from the scientific 
temptations of the age. We can place the good 
before them as they meet the evil tendencies of 
natural science, and by making the attractions of 
the good greater than the attractions of the evil 
we shall direct their religious thinking along the 
line of least resistance, 



Directing the Religious Thinking 179 

In a subsequent chapter we elaborate the influ- 
ence of Christian teachers in heathen lands in 
shaping the religious thinking of those lands. 

DIRECTING RELIGIOUS THINKING IN THE WORLD OF 
LITERATURE 

Over the entrance to the library of Thebes was 
written this inscription, "Medicine for the Soul." 
If books are good and teach men of God, religion, 
morals, and of eternity, as well as of the natural 
world and its charms, of the present life and its 
burdens, sorrows and joys, they do become "med- 
icine for the soul." De Quincey classified books 
as, "first, the literature of knowledge; secondly, 
the literature of power. The function of the 
first is to teach; the function of the second is to 
move." 

Christian teachers have a chance at the authors 
before they give us the literature of the world. 
They can give the truly religious and ethical tone 
to the literary aspirant in his years of training, so 
that when he takes up the quill to speak to his 
fellows through the lines of literature he can pro- 
duce either a book that gives "knowledge" — 
knowledge of God, of conditions and issues of 
right thinking and living ; or, a book that "moves" 
his fellows to right thinking and unselfish living. 

It is said that Carlyle, though raised by a reli- 
gious father and pious mother, though trained in 
college and in the divinity school to become a 
minister, was led to doubt historic Christianity 
and to give up the ministry, because he read Gib- 



180 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

bon's "Decline and Fall of the Koman Empire." 
Gibbon suggested to the young theological stu- 
dent's mind doubts about the claims of early 
Christianity. This separated such a mighty 
thinker as Carlyle from organized Christianity 
and clipped his wings of influence over the world 
of moral and religious achievements. 

John Henry Newman 2 said, "If literature is to 
be made a study of human nature you cannot have 
a Christian literature." Why not? Certainly, 
not in the sense that all the facts in all the books 
and periodical publications shall be Christian, 
but in the sense that all literature shall contrib- 
ute to the living of the best Christian life. In 
this sense all literature can be made Christian. 
Even books of fiction and of natural science can 
be true to the facts of nature and of life and still 
breathe the Christian spirit and give the Christian 
tone to their readers. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Washington Gladden, The Church and Modern 
Life. 

E. Y. Mullins, Axioms of Keligion (especially 
Chapter X, on Christian Nurture). 

Shailer Mathews, The Church and the Changing 
Order. 

W. R. Harper, The Trend in Higher Education. 

H. C. King, Reconstruction in Theology. 

William James, Varieties in Religious Expe 
rience. 



! Scope and Nature of University Education, 1889. 



Winning the Young to Christ 181 



CHAPTER XIII 

Winning the Young to Christ 

Christian education is not for personal ends 
only. We do not teach our youths to play and 
sing classical music merely for their own satis- 
faction. Neither music nor painting is learned 
for the joy of the musician or the painter. Chris- 
tian teachers do not teach the languages and lit- 
eratures, the sciences and the systems of philos- 
ophy, ethics and religious principles merely for 
unfolding the intellectual powers and cultivating 
the aesthetic tastes of the individual students. 
There is a social and evangelistic end in Christian 
education. 

In sending out cultivated Christian young men 
and young women, the Christian teacher is laying 
deep and broad foundations for domestic virtues, 
happiness, and achievements. With educated and 
cultured Christian parents we can reasonably look 
for well-trained children led to Christ in the 
early, tender years. Thus Christian education is 
evangelistic in its end and effect. 

the need of evangelization 

There is need in this generation for Christian 
teachers to put emphasis upon the necessity of 
personal evangelization. The word "culture" has 



182 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

had its significance broadened in late years. 
Nowadays it seems to be taught, in some quarters, 
that "culture" does the work of religion; that a 
child can be trained into Christian living without 
a personal experience of faith in Jesus Christ 
and a personal alignment for and with Christ as 
Saviour and Lord. 

A certain college president recently, in giving 
his Christian experience in an evangelistic meet- 
ing, said, "I do not remember the time when I was 
not a Christian; Christianity was the first thing 
I ever knew; I was a Christian from the cradle." 
Now, this statement is misleading, to say the least 
of it. The inference would naturally be that the 
Christian culture received in his childhood home 
had made him a Christian all unconsciously to 
him. If there is any basal principle in Christian- 
ity, it is individualism. Each person is respon- 
sible before God for his own soul and life. 
"Every man must bear his own burden." That is, 
the burden of personal responsibility for his rela- 
tion to God cannot be borne by father, mother, 
priest, or pastor, but must be borne by the indi- 
vidual. Hence, environment alone cannot make 
the child a Christian. Christian culture alone 
cannot save the child. 

All Christian teachers need to keep prominently 
in sight the reality and destructiveness of sin. 
The Old Testament prophets, Amos and Hosea, 
Isaiah and Micah, became great social reformers, 
because they Lad a keen sense of sin themselves 



Winning the Young to Christ 183 

and knew the heinousness of sin in the sight of 
God. They felt that Jehovah must punish sin- 
ners, if they did not repent. Therefore they 
preached sin and repentance and righteousness. 
John the Baptist also knew the sinfulness of 
human nature and preached repentance as the 
condition of entrance into the messianic kingdom. 
The Apostles, after learning in the school of Jesus, 
felt the enormity of sin, and so preached repent- 
ance. "Kepent and turn" was the cry of Peter in 
Jerusalem to the best men of the nation. Paul, 
keenly conscious of his own inability to attain 
righteousness by the deeds of the law, because of 
the weakness of the flesh, wrote that "all have 
sinned and are coming short of the glory of God." 
Consequently he exhorts men to "be reconciled to 
God." Thus we see the New Testament preachers 
and writers teach the inability of men to put off 
their sins except through repentance and by the 
help of God. The basis of all this teaching is 
probably the teaching of Jesus, "Except a man be 
born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of 
God." 

Of course, this language about being born again 
is figurative. But shall we shear it of all meaning 
because it is not literal? There is no actual 
rebirth of the human being, as is taught in the 
reincarnations of Buddhism. Yet, there is a real 
experience in the mind and heart, there is a trans- 
formation of personal relation to God and Christ, 
and a personal committal of one's self to God in 



184 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

Christ. This change in the religious life is com- 
parable to the birth of the child into this world. 
The analogy does not hold good at all points, 
still it does teach the necessity of a real change in 
order that men may "become" His children and 
do His will. The child in being born into this 
world has nothing to do voluntarily with the 
event. He is born (that its, brought) into this 
realm of existence without his knowledge or will. 
He cannot make himself be born. He cannot 
bear himself into this life. But the new convert 
has a will in his second birth ; that is, in his en- 
trance into the realities of the religious and spirit- 
ual life, he exercises volition, he chooses to "be 
born from above." God cannot compel him to 
"be born anew." "As many as received Him to 
them gave He the right to become the sons of God, 
even to them who believe on His name" (John 1: 
12). In the natural birth there is only one person 
(the mother) concerned with producing the birth, 
while in the spiritual change God, Christ, and the 
Holy Spirit, besides human agencies, combine to 
bring the individual to choose, "to receive Him," 
that he may become a child of God. 

Yet, in the main, there is a striking similarity 
between the entrance of the unconscious babe into 
this physical world by birth and the entrance of 
a conscious child or man into the spiritual life by 
choice and the help of God's Spirit. Both are 
real events in the history of the individual. Both 
are necessary in order to enjoy life in their respec- 



Winning the Young to Christ 185 

live realms. Both are according to fixed laws of 
God. Both establish a relationship (parental 
and filial) between the one who bears and the one 
born. Both are significant and tremendous in 
their issues. Both begin a period of growth and 
development, if normal conditions are sustained. 
Both begin a life that is endless, the psychical life 
of the first birth being as immortal as the spiritual 
life of the second birth. 

This teaching on the new birth rests on the 
teaching that men by nature are unable, by envi- 
ronment and culture, to attain the goal of man- 
hood that God has designed. In other words, 
men are sinners, and parents, according to the law 
of heredity, hand down to their children sinful 
tendencies, just as the drunkard, or the father 
dying of tuberculosis, hands down to his children 
the tendency toward the weakness of the parent. 
That is, as the scientific men put it, the child in- 
herits a "diminished power of resistance to that 
particular disease." No germ of disease is 
handed down from sire to son, but only the "di- 
minished power of resistance" to some particular 
disease. So no particular sin is handed down 
from father to child, only a "diminished power of 
resistance" to particular sins. How weak has 
become this "diminished power of resistance" in 
man's will unaided by the Divine Power! So in 
this age of scientific development, when man is 
viewed even by some Christian teachers as a 
product of evolution and hence capable of almost 



186 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

infinite future development, we need to emphasize 
the fact that human nature is impotent without 
the Divine help. 

Confucius taught the Chinese twenty-five cen- 
turies ago that human nature is good and not 
bad. Lao-tse, the ascetic dreamer of the Absolute 
(the Taou, as he called it), told Confucius that 
he was mistaken — that human nature is evil and 
cannot in itself achieve the ideals outlines in his 
ethical system. Confucius tried his ethical code 
built on man as potentially good, first in his 
native state Loo, then in other provinces, but it 
failed and he went into exile disappointed. After 
five centuries of testing Confucianism, a Chinese 
emperor sent for Buddhist missionaries to teach 
the Chinese religion, inasmuch as Confucianism 
had failed to empower his people to do the right 
which Confucius had taught them. In other 
words, Confucius' theory of man as inherently 
good was false, and did not work in the actual 
relations of life. After twenty-five centuries the 
world admits that Confucius' hypothesis of human 
nature is not correct. His theory of man does not 
produce even intellectual giants, to say nothing 
of moral heroes and religious martyrs. 

Charles Fleische, in the Home Culture Series of 
the Auxiliary Educational League, with regard to 
human nature, says, "Human nature is animal 
nature plus vision plus will." But whence does 
human nature get its power of "vision" and of 
"will"? Do men have visions of the best and 



Winning the Young to Christ 187 

noblest apart from God? A better formula 
would be, ''Renovated human nature is partially 
subjugated animal nature plus vision plus will." 
When God comes into a man He renovates him so 
that he has visions of love and life and duties and 
joys and destiny, and receives greater will-power 
to kb do all things in Christ who strengthened 
him." 

THE WORTH OF A MAN 

In our emphasis of the basal principle that 
human nature, apart from Divine help, is inca- 
pable of the highest moral and religious attain- 
ment, we must follow Jesus in stressing the worth 
of the individual. The Hebrew and the Jew had 
stressed the value of the nation, but not of the 
individual. Nor did Socrates, Plato, or Aristotle 
teach the true worth of the individual. It was 
Jesus who taught, "What doth it profit a man, 
to gain the whole world, and forfeit his life?" 
A man with psychical powers and possibili- 
ties is worth more than a world with all its 
physical resources and treasures. A man, made in 
the image of God, is the summit of life, so far as 
we know it on earth. He is God's masterpiece of 
creation. 

Men were made to rise higher and higher, until 
at last they can "know even as also they are 
known"; until they "shall be like Him, for they 
shall see Him as He is." Though born with a 
nature morally weak, men are still in the "image 



188 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

of God." This image is not perfect in the natural 
man. The likeness of the Divine Artist has been 
marred by generations of sinning. Still the 
handiwork of the Divine is seen in the upward 
glances of the human soul, in the efforts at moral 
and religious culture, seen even in non-Christian 
peoples. So the Christian teacher may well ex- 
clainr with Shakspere : "What a piece of work 
is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite 
in faculty, in form, and moving, how express and 
admirable! in action, how like an angel! in 
apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the 
world! the paragon of animals!" 

Man is superior to the lower animals as an 
animal. His structure is more complete jand 
more easily adjustable to all desirable movements. 
In powers of thought, creation, and imagination, 
he is a wonder. His mind has spanned continents 
and oceans, bound the world with chains of elec- 
tricity, and is now preparing to navigate the air 
with Lusitanian airships. As to ethics, he is 
the only animal on earth with a conscience to 
tell him what is right and what is wrong. This 
conscience is blurred in its judgments, and yet it 
is cultivable and may be trained into seeing truth 
as God sees it, "the truth as it is in Jesus." Man 
is the only animal that prays and worships. He 
is the religious animal. He possesses aspirations 
of spirit which lead him out and beyond himself, 
which lead him to believe in God, to pray to Him 
for help in life's struggles, to love and trust Him 
in His goodness and greatness. 



Winning the Young to Christ 189 

In a sense Browning's prophecy is true, "Mali is 
not man as yet." He is not the man God has 
planned him to become in the future ages. Sin 
has held him down in his upward leaps. His 
capacity for thought, for ethical and religious 
achievements, has been limited, both by his orig- 
inal constitution and the entrance of sin into his 
life and experience. Man was made to grow. As 
another has said: 

"Progress, man's distinctive mark alone, 
Not God's, not the beast's — man partly is and wholly 
hopes to be." 

Then let not the Christian teacher ever forget 
to impress on his pupils the almost infinite possi- 
bilities of man's development, intellectually, 
morally, and religiously. 

SOWING THE SEED OP EVANGELISM IN THE HOME 

The place where evangelism should begin is the 
home. The father and the mother should not 
only teach the child that there is a God who made 
him and the world, but should also teach him the 
reality of sin as soon as he knows the right and 
the wrong. The mother should tell the child the 
stories of the fall, of Cain, of the flood, of Samson, 
of David, and scores of others, to impress the 
child with the evil nature and bad consequences 
of sin. 

On the other hand, she should early impress the 
child with the love of God. The character of 



190 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

God as impressed on the growing child mind must 
not be abnormal or one-sided. He should see 
God as a loving Father as well as a righteous 
King. So she should tell the story of Jesus very 
early in the child's life, how God loved the world 
of His wandering creatures and gave His Son to 
die for their restoration, so that all who by trust 
accept Christ as their Saviour can be rescued 
from sin and brought into religious and moral 
living. 

A mother was once telling her four-year-old boy 
the stories of Jesus' life. When she came to the 
picture of the cross and its tragic story, she passed 
it by, saying, "I'll tell you that sad story by and 
by, my son." But the little boy insisted, "O 
mother, tell it now; I want to hear it now." So 
at last she told him the story of Calvary, how 
Jesus was hated by Pharisees and scribes and 
chief priests, betrayed by Judas, and crucified by 
the Komans to please the wicked Jews ; that Jesus 
could have saved His life if He had chosen to do 
so, but that he voluntarily gave Himself up to die 
for our sins. When she had finished he climbed 
up into his mother's lap, put his arms about her 
neck, and said, "Wasn't it a dear Jesus that died 
for me?" She told him "yes" and kissed his 
blushing little cheek. Two weeks afterward the 
little boy was suddenly taken sick and died. The 
mother's sweetest reminiscence in after years was 
of the scene that followed the telling of the story 
of the dying Jesus and the sweetest words of her 



Winning the Young to Christ 191 

dead child were, "O mother, it was a dear Jesus 
that died for me." Who knows but that the four-, 
year-old boy appropriated the saving power of 
God in Christ and was "born from above-'? 

The home is the most important field of evan- 
gelism. Young Timothy was easily won by Paul 
in Lystra as he preached Jesus the Messiah and 
Saviour, because to him had been taught the 
Scriptures and the hope of the coming Messiah 
by faithful grandmother Lois and a loving mother 
Eunice. It is easy for the pastor, or evangelist, 
to lead the children to personal trust in Christ 
and surrender to the Christian life, if the father 
and mother have laid the foundations of evangel- 
ism in the home. 

SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHERS AS EVANGELISTS 

Next to the mother and father comes the Sun- 
day school teacher as the most influential agent 
in leading the young to Christ. Catherine Ham- 
mond, one of the greatest Sunday School teachers 
in America, w T hen the revival was on in her 
church, dismissed the regular lesson that morning 
and lovingly talked to the youngsters of sixteen 
about the worth of the soul and how Christ loved 
young men. At the close she pressed them to 
accept Christ that day. The five non-Christian 
boys of her class were the first to make the con- 
fession of Christ that day. 

It is necessary to teach along evangelistic lines 
as well as historical and ethical. It is good to 



192 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

teach the children the history of the Old and New 
Testament times, and it is useful to teach them 
the highest principles of moral living. But it is 
most essential that the Sunday School teacher 
should emphasize the reality and destructiveness 
of sin and the inability of their pupils to rescue 
themselves by education, or culture, or good 
works, but that God graciously saves all who 
accept Christ as Saviour. 

We will not stop to discuss the function of the 
pastor as an evangelist teacher. This is implied 
in his position. He is the religious teacher of the 
people, and, of course, he must teach them about 
sin, the necessity of spiritual renewal, and the 
way to be saved in Christ Jesus. 

THE EVANGELISTIC FUNCTION OF THE CHRISTIAN 
COLLEGE TEACHER 

In Italy all roads lead to Eome. In the teach- 
ing of the Christian college teacher all knowledge 
should lead to Christ. He should not at all times 
burden his pupils with the sense of the serious 
religious side of life. Yet, he should live so much 
like Christ and be so clean and consistent in his 
conduct that his life becomes an evangel bidding 
his pupils to come to Christ and live the Christ 
life. Then in the college revival he can become, 
and often is, the mightiest personal worker. 
Many a skeptical young man has been brought to 
the life of trust in Christ by a faithful college 
teacher in the college revival season. 



Winning the Young to Christ 193 

In the closing chapter we discuss the evangel- 
istic function of Christian teachers in mission 
schools. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

H. Clay Trumbull, Yale Lectures on the Sunday 
School, Lecture IX, Preaching to Children. 

H. Clay Trumbull, My Four Religious Teachers. 

F. L. Brown, The Sunday School and the Home. 

Woodrow Wilson, The Young People and the 
Church (pamphlet, in paper, 10 cents). 

'Wells and Schauffler, A Soul-Saving Sunday 
School. 

Eiley, The Perennial Revival. 

Dixon, Evangelism Old and New. 

Torrey, How to Promote and Conduct a Suc- 
cessful Revival, pp. 66-110. 



-13- 



194 Function of Teaching in Christianity 



CHAPTER XIV 

The Training of Church Members in Christian 
Living 

Although the spirit of evangelism is growing 
in many lands, the number of evangelists is in- 
creasing and the interest of the church in evangel- 
ism is being intensified in these last two decades, 
yet in much of our modern evangelism there are 
incorrect views. Conspicuous among the incor- 
rect views is the view that it is the function of 
Christianity to save men's souls at any cost, what- 
ever becomes of their lives afterwards. There is 
not enough emphasis put on the salvation of the 
life. The concern for the salvation of souls is out 
of proportion with the interest in saving the lives 
of Christians. I mean by saving the lives of 
Christians the training of Christians in the beau- 
tiful art of living and practising the Christ life; 
developing our church members so as to live purer 
moral lives, render greater service in lifting the 
fallen classes of society, and alleviating the suffer- 
ing of the unfortunate — the poor, the orphan, the 
widow, the sick, the man without a job, the blind, 
the deaf, the dumb. 

See Chapter IV, where we showed that it is one 
of the chief functions of Christian teaching, ac- 
cording to Paul, to present every man perfect in 



Training of Church Members 195 

Christ; that is, to train each Christian in knowl- 
edge and service so as to perfect the noblest Chris- 
tian graces (Col. 1: 28). 

It is a fact in Greek etymology that the Greeks 
used the same word (ps uchee) for soul and life. 
That is, the soul was regarded as the vital prin- 
ciple in the human being, the part on which de- 
pended the activities of the body. The life was 
the expression of that soul principle in the activ- 
ities of men. The word life came to have two 
senses, the lower, sensual, selfish life, and the 
higher, spiritual, and altruistic life. Jesus was 
playing on these two senses of the word when He 
said, "For whosoever would save his life" (lower, 
sensual) "shall lose it" (the higher, spiritual) ; 
"and whosoever shall lose his life" (the lower, 
sensual) "for my sake and the gospel's, shall save 
it" (the higher, spiritual) ; "for what doth it 
profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit 
his life?" (the higher, spiritual) "for what 
should a man give in exchange for his life?" (the 
higher, spiritual). Mark 8: 35-37. In this sec- 
tion Jesus is talking about His sacrificial death 
for men and is urging His disciples that they can- 
not "save their life" (the higher, spiritual, altru- 
istic expression of the vital principle) unless they 
take up the cross and follow Him ; that is, unless 
they give up the lower, selfish life and live the 
higher life of love and sacrifice for others. 

This is undoubtedly the weak point in our eccle- 
siastical life today. The churches have not ade- 



196 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

quately "served" men in their economic, social, 
mental, moral, and religious struggles. They 
have not built eleemosynary institutions, as they 
should, for the relief of extreme suffering. They 
have not sympathized with the poor and the labor- 
ing man, as they should, to make the poor feel 
that they "have the gospel preached unto them." 
Hence has arisen the Salvation Army, which has 
done (notwithstanding its many questionable 
methods of doing religious work) so much to 
ameliorate life in the slums and alleys. Hence 
have arisen Ethical Culture Societies, under Felix 
Adler, which are emphasizing the cultivation of 
ethics independently of religion. 1 Because of the 
churches' failure there have arisen many brother- 
hoods to do the charity work of our communities, 
cities and states — e. g., the Masons, the Odd Fel- 
lows, Knights of Pythias, etc. It is true, the 
spirit of unselfish service and charity may have 
been inspired by the churches in the life of the 
community and thus arose the eleemosynary enter- 
prises of modern brotherhoods. And perhaps it 
is not best that the churches should do all the 
charity work of the community. Be this as it 
may, we wish to enter here and now a plea for the 
training of our church members for a higher real- 
ization of the Christ life; for a better life expres- 
sion of the fundamentals of our Christian religion. 



*See article on Ethical Culture Societies, The New 
Schaff Herzog Encyclopaedia of Religious Knowledge, 
Vol. IV. 



Training of Church Members 197 

INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY AND ECCLESIASTICAL DEMOCRACY 
DEMAND A TRAINED CHURCH MEMBERSHIP 

That each man possesses intellectual, moral, 
and religious liberty is taught throughout the 
New Testament. Jesus taught that a man was 
not bound by traditionalism, but was free to 
follow the convictions of his own conscience en- 
lightened by the Divine Spirit. He himself was 
an example of personal liberty. The Divine 
Spirit illumined His mind and gave Him the high- 
est moral and religious conceptions that have yet 
been enunciated to men. He felt free to follow 
the Divine Spirit and not bound either to Mosaism 
(in its narrow interpretation) or to Eabbinism. 

Paul also taught the freedom and responsibility 
of the individual. "Each man shall bear his own 
burden" (Gal. 6: 5). "Each man has certain 
responsibilities imposed on him individually which 
he cannot throw off." 2 

In the light of this teaching of personal free- 
dom and responsibility it is all the more essential 
that the individual in the church should be prop- 
erly trained for bearing the responsibilities im- 
posed upon him. Unless he is trained, the indi- 
vidual cannot appreciate his moral and spiritual 
possibilities. Unless taught what God does for 
him in salvation and what He expects from him 
in the new life, the individual can never be ex- 
pected to "work out his own salvation with fear 



2 Lightfoot, Commentary on Galatians, p. 298. 



198 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

and trembling"; that is, he can never be relied 
upon properly to express in his life before his fel- 
lows and in his conscious efforts for their happi- 
ness and improvement, the yearnings of the spirit- 
ual life which God works within the individual 
Christian. How many noble-hearted Christian 
men and women there are in all our churches, who, 
if they were only trained to look beyond the 
horizon of their own little lives, would become 
Florence Nightingales or Clara Bartons to soothe 
the fevered brows of suffering men; or Fannie 
Hecks or Fannie Knights, either to lead the hosts 
of their ambitious sisters at home to higher lives 
of service and sacrifice, or to go out upon the dis- 
tant line of battle to fight for the spiritual, moral, 
and social liberty of their sisters abroad ; or Henry 
Martyns, Robert Morrisons, or Matthew Yateses, 
to tell of Christ and live his life among the be- 
nighted heathen of Africa and Asia! If God has 
left each man free to follow the light within his 
own conscience, how' important that each mind 
and heart should be cultivated, so that each con- 
science should possess as much as possible of the 
Divine light, and that each will should be made 
strong with intellectual and spiritual training to 
follow as closely as possible the Divine light in the 
individual conscience ! 

That the New Testament teaches ecclesiastical 
democracy is admitted by nearly all modern New 
Testament scholars. The New Testament teaches 
that each church is a little republic within itself, 



Training of Church Members 199 

whose government is "of the people, by the people, 
and for the people." The members of the local 
church constitute the governing body of that 
church. The pastor is the president of this spirit- 
ual republic. The deacons compose his cabinet of 
counsellors. The teachings of Jesus and of the 
Apostles constitute the legislative and judicial 
powers for regulating their thinking and living. 
The members of the church en masse, with the 
pastor as chief executive, constitute the executive 
department of the church. 

It is a. historical fact that Thomas Jefferson 
took the simple government of a Baptist church 
in Virginia as the pattern for the democratic form 
of government in the Bepublic of the United 
States. It is also to be noted that the trend of 
modern political ideas is toward democracy, away 
from absolute monarchy. Becall the recent move- 
ments in Eussia, Turkey, Persia, India, China, 
England, etc. 

Now, if this democratic idea of church govern- 
ment be the true method of church government, as 
well as the ideal form of political government, it 
is of grave significance that the mass of church 
members should be cultivated, intellectually, mor- 
ally, and spiritualy. Thomas Jefferson, as is well 
known, said the only hope of the American Ee- 
public was the education of the people. If the 
people were to rule they must be trained to think 
and live and rule according to the laws of thought 
and morals. This is why he founded the univer- 



200 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

sity of Virginia and advocated the founding of 
lower schools for the education of the masses. 

So Jesus and the Apostles felt that, if the 
masses of members in the church republic should 
rule, they must "be taught." So in the Great Com- 
mission Jesus commands, "teaching them to ob- 
serve all things whatsoever I have commanded 
you." And Paul spoke of pastors (bishops) as 
being "skillful to teach," and even spoke of a 
class of men in the early churches called "teach- 
ers." The whole New Testament system of church 
polity points to and demands the highest training 
of individual Christians. If the church Avere an 
absolute monarchy with the pope as monarch, 
then there would not be such a demand for the 
enlightenment of the masses of Christians. If 
the church were a limited monarchy, presided 
over by archbishops and other ecclesiastical digni- 
taries, there would not be so great demand for 
trained individual church members. But since, 
as the New Testament teaches, the church is a 
democracy, a spiritual republic, where the individ- 
ual members are "kings and priests," how essential 
it becomes that all the members of a church should 
be thoroughly trained! 

WHO ARE TO BE TRAINED ? 

We have already intimated that all church mem- 
bers should be trained, an obligation growing out 
of the democratic idea of church government in 
the New Testament. But to make it clear and 



Training of Church Members 201 

more cogent, we specify the various classes in the 
church that should be trained. 

The Pastor 

In general terms he is the spiritual leader of 
the church. But the fact that he is the spiritual 
and moral leader of the church, not the educa- 
tional, economic, political leader, is no reason 
against the educational and cultural qualifications 
of the pastor. Moses and Paul became mighty 
leaders of moral and religious movements, but it 
must be noted that in each case God called an 
educated and trained man to lead. Has He ceased 
to do likewise after centuries of intellectual and 
social development of men? 

The pastor must be educated and trained, in 
these times, because the people are becoming more 
and more enlightened, intellectually, politically, 
aesthetically, and socially. The unequipped 
preacher in the coming generations w T ill not be 
able to lead the people into the highest thinking 
and living. The people will not follow one w 7 hom 
they do not trust as worthy to lead them. This is 
a psychological law which God made and which 
He will see is enforced. The people themselves, 
trained in general culture and trained in some 
specific culture, will not deem as worthy of leader- 
ship over them the preacher wiio does not possess 
a general culture superior to that of the majority 
of men and a specific culture in theology, ethics, 
sociology and ecclesiastical affairs. 



202 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

For a fuller statement of the necessity of the 
pastor's training, see Chapter VI. 

The Sunday School Superintendent 

He is, in the most significant sense, the pastor's 
assistant. We maintain that if the pastor should 
possess so complete equipment for his strategic 
position, and if the Sunday School superintendent 
is the aid to the pastor, the superintendent should 
be a man of superior character and equipment for 
the proper administration of the Sunday School. 
The pastor of the church is also pastor of the 
Sunday School, but the superintendent is the over- 
seer of the Sunday School, who actually adminis- 
ters its affairs, from the adult class down to the 
kindergarten. 

In a large church in the city, or town, or coun- 
try, where may be found good men of education 
and culture, other things being equal, the Sunday 
School superintendent should be selected from 
this class of men. As culture advances in all our 
churches the demand becomes the more urgent 
that the Sunday School superintendent should be 
a man of general culture — not necessarily a college 
or university graduate, although in some centers 
of education this would be most desirable. Such 
a man would naturally command the respect and 
admiration of the cultured young people who 
ought to be in the Sunday School. Now, let it be 
understood that we are not laying down a hard 
and fast educational qualification for a Sunday 



Training of Church Members 203 

School superintendent. Some men of little gen- 
eral culture make most successful superintendents. 
He should also have an extended course of Bib- 
lical culture. Next to the pastor, the Sunday 
School superintendent should be versed in Bible 
knowledge. If possible, he should know psychol- 
ogy and pedagogy. 

Sunday School Teachers 

It is useless here to go into details as to the 
courses necessary for the Sunday School teachers. 
See Chapter VIII. 

Deacon Culture 

If the deacons constitute the cabinet of coun- 
sellors to the pastor in the local church republic, 
how necessary that these men should be competent 
and well equipped! We maintain, in this age of 
increasing culture and education, that the deacons 
should be more and more men of some general 
culture, with a broader outlook on life and prog- 
ress. What good is it for the pastor to be a man 
of great plans for progress if most of his deacons 
are narrow in their visions of life and church 
growth? Many progressive, competent pastors 
are tied hand and foot because their deacons are 
non-progressive. We need trained deacons as well 
as trained preachers and teachers. 

But deacons must above all be trained in spirit^ 
ual culture and business affairs. These men 
should be "full of faith and of the Holy Spirit." 



204 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

They will thus command the respect and confi- 
dence of their brothers and of thinking men out- 
side the church. They must be men of a business 
turn of mind. The church of the future must be 
run on a financial, as well as a spiritual, basis. 
As our church life develops, it becomes more com- 
plex, and more and more it becomes necessary that 
money should play a significant part in the admin- 
istration of its affairs. 

Training the Rank and File of Church 
Members 

If at West Point and Annapolis our nation 
needs to train the rank and file of its army and 
navy, should not the church have training points 
for the cultivation of individual Christians? 
When we remember that the Christian army 
should be on duty all the time; that the war be- 
tween good and evil never raises the flag of truce, 
how much more necessary is it that the rank and 
file of each church regiment should be trained for 
service and ready for action all the time! The 
motto of the progressive, loyal pastor should be, 
"Christ expects every man to do his duty and every 
man trained to do his best." Each pastor with 
his church is fighting a greater battle than Lord 
Nelson fought at Trafalgar, and if this battle is to 
achieve a glorious victory, each Christian soldier 
should be trained for some service. Cromwell 
trained his Ironsides, every man of them, and 
when his Ironsides met the enemy, there was fine 



Training of Church Members 205 

fighting done and victory usually came Cromwell's 
way. So it will be for a skillful pastor-general 
who has a trained church composed of spiritual 
Ironsides. 

Training the New Converts 

The time to begin the training of church mem- 
bers is immediately after their conversion and 
baptism. A lad of thirteen was baptized and at 
once was informed that he was expected to give 
for pastor's salary fifty cents. In a year or two 
after his baptism he taught a class in a mission 
Sunday School, and the next year became its 
superintendent. Now there stands in the country 
place a strong church. A little later this youth 
was asked to lead and speak in religious meetings. 
At seventeen he was licensed to preach, and is now 
a successful minister of the Word. 

If we would have trained church members the 
pastors must see to it that the new converts are 
put to learning and doing the Master's will. Give 
each one something to learn and something to do. 
Learning and doing go together. The world is 
not blessed if we learn and do not. If we do and 
learn not, the doing will likely be misdirected and 
partially unsuccessful. 

Who Can and Must Train Church Members? 

Christian Colleges and Seminaries should begin 
the work of training individual church members. 
The Christian college should give the preacher a 



206 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

deep and broad literary education. At the same 
time it should be turning out well-rounded Chris- 
tian laymen who can become aggressive, successful 
workers in the church. The Christian colleges 
should teach the knowledge of Christ and of the 
Bible, along with knowledge of the languages and 
sciences, literature and systems of philosophy.. 
They should have Bible departments (as many 
have), and the laymen as well as ministerial stu- 
dents should take Bible courses while at college. 
This will furnish a nucleus of men and women of 
general and Biblical culture in most of our 
churches. 

Then the seminary trains the preacher. The 
seminary of the future must prepare the pastor 
to be a teacher as well as a preacher. In the 
future the pastor's most telling work will be his 
teaching. We mean no disparagement to the 
pulpit proclamation of the gospel nor to pastoral 
visitation. These will always be important func- 
tions of the pastor, but the chief business of the 
future pastor will be the teaching of Christianity. 
The pastor is the chief teacher in the local church. 
Hence he should practice the training received at 
the seminary and in his local church teach and 
train the Sunday School teachers, charity and 
mission workers, etc. 

The Sunday School teachers, when better 
trained themselves, will be an efficient force under 
the wise, progressive pastor for the Biblical and 
spiritual training of the remaining members of 



Training of Church Members 207 

the church. The Sunday School teachers, if they 
have regularly graded courses of Bible study, 
which we hope and trust they soon will have, can 
do much to impart Biblical knowledge which is 
basal in all Christian activities. They can help 
the pastor to train the new converts, and to give 
even older Christians advanced courses. 

In some town and city churches, or in other 
educational centers, the young peoples' societies 
are fortunate in having college or university pro- 
fessors and teachers connected with them. These 
trained teachers, if loyal Christian men and 
women, should train themselves in the Bible and 
missions and use their teaching talents in train- 
ing young men and young women. 

HOW TO TRAIN CHURCH MEMBERS 

This has been partially answered above. But 
to be specific, we must itemize some methods used 
by progressive pastors to much profit. 

1. Each pastor, if at all possible, should have a 
teacher training class. Not all teachers will be 
present at all sessions of the class, but this teacher 
training is absolutely necessary. 

2. In Bible Classes. Each pastor should ar- 
range to teach one or more Bible classes, seeking 
in a certain period of time to cover the whole Bible 
and reach his whole church membership. We are 
glad that in many churches, in various denomina- 
tions, in different states, wide-awake pastors are 
already organizing classes for Bible study — old 



208 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

men's classes, old women's classes, young men's 
classes, and young women's classes (more often 
all are now taught in one great class). The 
pastor is thus organizing a little seminary in his 
church. The kingdom will never come as it should 
come until pastors establish these local theological 
seminaries (Bible classes) for a systematic and 
practical study of the Bible. When our people 
know God's will they will be better Christians, 
busier workers, and braver missionaries. 

3. Mission Study Classes. A beginning has 
already been made in this far-reaching work. The 
Baptist Foreign Mission Board at Eichmond, Va., 
has its educational secretary who is helping pas- 
tors to organize and teach mission study classes. 
Other denominations are taking up similar courses 
in missions in their local churches. In these mis- 
sion courses in the church the pastor should stress 
the Biblical basis of missions, showing that the 
Bible is a missionary book, from Genesis to Bev- 
elation. It should be shown that the prophets, 
Amos and Hosea, Isaiah and Micah, Jeremiah and 
Ezekiel, etc., Jesus and the Apostles, especially 
Paul the Apostle to the Gentiles, were all mission- 
ary in spirit and more or less so in religious 
activities. There should also be courses on the 
great fields and their needs, China, Japan, India, 
Africa, Mexico, South America, etc. We are in- 
formed that many bright young men and women 
are deciding to be missionaries from impressions 
received in these mission study classes. Also 



Training of Church Members 209 

many rich men are impressed by the same means 
to give their thousands to missions. Especially 
should every church in a college, or university, 
town or city have as many as possible of these mis- 
sion study classes, and enlist as many students as 
possible to take these courses. 

4. Study Classes in Sociology. Sociology, the 
science of human society, the study of its struc- 
ture, needs, problems, happiness, and develop- 
ment, is a new science, but must be reckoned with 
by every progressive pastor and by every town and 
city church that expects to fulfill its highest func- 
tion in reaching and blessing men. We devote 
the next chapter to the church and sociological 
conditions, and so will not elaborate further in 
this chapter. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

I. J. Van Ness, Training in Church Membership. 

Mullins, Axioms of Eeligion, Chapters VII-IX 
(The Eeligious Axiom, The Ecclesiastical Axiom, 
and The Moral Axiom). 

Faunce, The Educational Ideal in the Ministry. 

—14— 



210 Function of Teaching in Christianity 



CHAPTER XV 

The Betterment op Social Conditions 

Social problems are becoming the problems of 
modern thought. The social aspect of economic, 
political, intellectual, moral, and religious prob- 
lems is now of absorbing interest to political 
economists, statesmen, philosophers, and natural 
scientists, as well as to moralists and Christians. 
Of course, to Christian teachers these social issues 
are now of vital concern. The problems of society 
must be studied and settled in the light of Chris- 
tian teaching. The Christian teachings of the 
twentieth century must turn the searchlight of 
New Testament teachings upon modern social con- 
ditions. This is already being done. "The social 
awakening in the churches, as a matter of fact, has 
reached a point that few suspect. The degree of 
awakening cannot be measured by visible social 
activities, though these are multiplying with sur- 
prising rapidity. The more important fact is that 
the Christian consciousness, for the first time in 
its whole history, is realizing the profoundly rad- 
ical nature of its cherished principle of fatherhood 
and brotherhood. Of the Protestant churches, at 
least, it can be said, with qualification, that we are 
going through a process of inner readjustment, 
the outcome of which will be an organized attack 



Betterment of Social Conditions 211 

upon social injustice, an organized effort to recon- 
struct our social machinery in the interest of 
human brotherhood." 1 

Prof. Rauschenbusch, Rochester Theological 
Seminary, in a recent book, 2 sees a great social 
crisis impending in which Christianity has a 
responsibility and an opportunity. He says, "The 
church, too, feels the incipient paralysis that is 
creeping upon our Christian civilization through 
the unjust absorption of wealth on the one side and 
the poverty of the people on the other. It cannot 
thrive when society decays. Its wealth, its inde- 
pendence, its ministry, its social hold, its spiritual 
authority, are threatened in a hundred ways." 
"The religion of Jesus has less to fear from sitting 
down to meat with publicans and sinners than 
from the immaculate isolation of the Pharisees. . . . 
If the church tries to confine itself to theology 
and the Bible, and refuses its larger mission to 
humanity, its theology will gradually beoome 
mythology and its Bible a closed book." "If the 
church can rally such moral forces that injustice 
will be overcome and fresh red blood will course in 
a sounder social organism, it will itself rise to 
higher liberty and life." 

Let us remind the reader that we are not endors- 
ing modern socialism. There are four common 
mistakes made by modern socialism : 



1 Geo. A. Coe, Union Theological Seminary, in Homi- 
letic Review, February, 1910. 

2 Christianity and the Social Crisis, especially Chap- 
ters V to VII. 



212 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

1. It would abolish, or very seriously curtail, 
private ownership of property. 

2. It would destroy all competition in the world 
of labor, commerce, etc. 

3. It relies too much on legislation to make 
economic and social conditions what they ought 
to be. 

4. It makes too much of external remedies, 
social clubs, cultural societies, etc., and not enough 
of the internal — that is, a change of character, life, 
conduct, from the religious and spiritual point of 
view. These are undoubtedly basal errors in the 
systems of socialism now occupying the field in 
Germany, England, France, the United States, and 
in other countries. Yet, there is much justice in 
the demands of modern socialists. Many of their 
ends should be secured because right. 

What are modern Christian teachers to do in the 
face of such social problems and of such solutions 
as are offered by radical socialists? 

I. We must recognize and teach others to recog- 
nize that Christianity is essentially a social re- 
ligion. The heart of Christianity is love, and love 
expresses itself in the social relations of men. 

1. Though men are saved as individuals, yet 
their complete salvation — that is, their symmet- 
rical, perfected altruistic character as viewed by 
Jesus and Paul, is a product of the process of 
socialization. That is, the individual must bear 
his own "burden," the responsibility to God with 
respect to his personal relation to God and spirit 



Betterment of Social Conditions 213 

ual destiny, but each saved individual can realize 
the personal relationship with God and the spirit- 
ual destiny designed by God only as he expresses 
himself in social terms. In other words, the indi- 
vidual realizes himself to the utmost of his ability 
only as he expresses himself in love, service, and 
sacrifice for others. Man is a social animal. The 
Christian man is the social man par excellence. 
Christianity, on coming into the heart of the indi- 
vidual, widens his horizon, makes him see that he 
is one in a society of fellow beings of similar needs, 
sins, desires, ambitions^ and possible destiny. 
This socializing function of Christianity is a fact 
of universal Christian experience. Every Chris- 
tian remembers how, when he accepted Jesus as 
Savior and Lord, he "loved everybody"; he felt 
that everybody was his brother and that he wanted 
to help and bless everybody. Alas! so often the 
socializing impulse planted in the heart at con- 
version is not cultivated and the aging Christian 
becomes more 1 selfish instead of more altruistic. 
Instead of socializing our individual impulses w r e 
individualize our social desires. But this is not 
the fault of Christianity. It is fundamentally 
social in nature. It started in love, a social func- 
tion. God loved others and gave His Son for 
others. God is a social God. He is not self- 
centered and satisfied with loving Himself. He 
must have others to love and help, and share His 
joys and glories. 

2. New Testament Evangelism is socialistic as 



214 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

well as individualistic. God saves one man that 
He may help to save another. John the Baptist 
was evangelistic but socialistic in the highest 
sense, when he said to the two disciples standing 
with him one day, "Behold, the Lamb of God 
which taketk away the sin of the world." He 
wanted these two men to have the best, and knew 
that only Jesus could give it to them, so he gives 
them up as his disciples so that they may become 
the disciples of Christ. This is evangelism, but 
evangelism that is social. Andrew, one of those 
led to the Messiah by the Baptist, received at once 
a new socializing impulse. He could not know 
and love the Messiah alone. His brother, too, 
must know and love him. So away he runs and 
cries to Simon, his brother, "We have found him, 
. . . and he brought him unto Jesus." The 
same socializing influence of Christianity is seen 
in Philip, who won the prejudiced Nathanael to 
the Nazarene. Evangelism is social, seeking to 
bless and save another. 

So the Acts account (16: 31) represents Paul 
as saying to the jailor, "Believe on the Lord Jesus 
Christ, and thou shalt be saved and thy house." 
It was not intended that the faith of the father 
and husband should save the rest of the house, 
but faith itself is a socializing force. The head 
of the household believed and longed to see his 
loved ones rejoice in the same faith. 

3. Jesus Himself was a teacher of sociology. 
He was not a social teacher of the type of Confu- 



Betterment of Social Conditions 215 

cius, who taught expressly the duties of the five 
social relations. He was not a social teacher like 
Lasalle of Germany, who advocated, little less than 
half a century ago, a social democracy, according 
to which present forms of government shall be 
superseded by the socialistic government in which 
labor interests are to be supreme, land and capital 
to belong to the people, and private competition to 
cease. Nor was Jesus a social teacher of the type 
of Oarl Marx, Avho regarded the state as a "super- 
fluous" institution because it was considered an 
"exploiting institution of the rulers" for grinding 
the working man. Jesus taught that we should 
"render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's." 

Nor was Jesus the teacher of exactly that type 
of socialism which arose in England about 1850, 
championed by Charles Kingsley, Frederick Mau- 
rice, and Thomas Hughes, in which the present 
system of competition should give place to coop- 
erative associations both productive and distrib- 
utive; in which there must be, not only external 
changes, but an internal change by the educational 
processes of Christian teaching; and in which the 
state was to be appealed to only for removing all 
conditions hostile to the realization of these social 
ideals. 

But Jesus did teach the fatherhood of God and 
the brotherhood of man. He taught that the 
heavenly Father had a kingdom on earth, a spirit- 
ual society in which men should love God su- 
premely and their fellow men as themselves. This 



216 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

kingdom is for all men, Jews and Gentiles, rich 
and poor, learned and illiterate, because the 
Father loves all men and wants all men to be His 
sons and brothers to one another. In this sense 
the Divine fatherhood and human brotherhood are 
universal. God would Jove all into His kingdom 
of love and righteousness and would see all men 
love as brothers. The members of this society of 
Jesus must "hate their own lives" (only relatively 
by way of comparison) in order to love and bless 
others: So taught Jesus. 

The members of this society must forego their 
own rights out of love to others, and so must for- 
give their enemies. Love, not might, is right. He 
who loves the other man will do him justice. He 
who loves another class of men (enemies, poor, 
working men, et al.) as he ought to love them — 
namely, as his brothers — will respect their rights 
and seek to love them into the recognition of his 
rights. In other words, love is the basis of all true 
social living. Men can never respect the rights of 
others until they socialize self, love others and 
themselves as members of one common society. 

This doctrine of social democracy Jesus prac- 
ticed. Any man, of whatever class, was loved as 
His brother. "He went about doing good," allow- 
ing His own interests to be absorbed in the social 
good. He was not only the Founder of this social 
order of love, but the Exemplar of its principles 
of love, service, and sacrifice. 



Betterment of Social Conditions 217 

II. Christianity exerted great social influence 
in the first, second, and third centuries of its his- 
tory. In Acts 2 to 5 we read of the disciples' sell- 
ing their goods and possessions and laying the 
money at the apostles' feet for distribution "as 
any one had need." "They had all things com- 
mon." Even Barnabas sold his farm on the island 
of Cyprus and laid the money at the apostles' feet 
for the common use in Jerusalem. Most com- 
mentators on Acts agree that this mode of living 
among the primitive Christians was not com- 
munism. So says Peabody. 3 The rights of pri- 
vate property seem not to have been relinquished. 
It was their recognition of human brotherhood 
and their way of expressing love for one another. 
The rich did not consider their property as their 
own, but as subject to the common needs of the 
religious community. 

This mode of living with "all things common" 
was not perpetuated in any definite social form. 
So claims J. H. Moulton. 4 

The work of Paul and Barnabas was still more 
socialistic. Jews and Gentiles would not have 
social dealings with each other. The Jews re- 
garded themselves superior to the Gentiles, and 
would not eat or associate with them. Though 
God taught Peter by a vision that he ought to eat 
and associate with and preach to a Roman soldier, 
Cornelius, and his Gentile household, yet it was 



3 Jesus and the Social Question, page 22. 

4 The Social Teaching of the Bible, pp. 214-216. 



218 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

left to Paul and Barnabas to demonstrate on a 
large scale the brotherhood of Jews and Gentiles; 
to show how, in the Gospel of Christ, "the middle 
wall of partition" was broken down between Jews 
and Gentiles and all men as brothers in Christ 
could become "fellow citizens with the saints and 
of the household of God.' 5 

The conference at Jerusalem (Acts 15 and Gal. 
2) shows still further the socializing influence of 
early Christianity. Paul and Barnabas had pro- 
claimed to the Gentiles salvation by grace without 
the deeds of the law. The Judaizers had told the 
Galatian Christians that this was not the true 
Gospel, that men could not be good Christians 
without being circumcised and keeping the law of 
Moses. Hence, the conference was called in Jeru- 
salem to settle the conditions on which Gentiles 
should be received into the kingdom. It was de- 
cided not to put a "yoke" on the Gentiles which 
the Jews themselves could not bear; the Gentiles 
could enter the kingdom and be good Christians 
on the same condition as Jews, namely: by faith 
in Christ without circumcision. The presence in 
Jerusalem of Titus, a Greek uncircumcised, em- 
phasized the social as well as religious equality of 
Jews and Gentiles. Though a few extreme Juda- 
istic Christians clamored for Titus' circumcision, 
the majority went with Paul and Barnabas for 
the larger socializing view of Christianity, the 
view which recognized Jews and Gentiles as broth- 
ers in Christ on the same footing before God and 



Betterment of Social Conditions 219 

enjoying the same rights and privileges in the 
gospel. 

Another point emphasized in the Jerusalem 
conference was the proper treatment of the "poor" 
(Gal. 2: 10). The apostles requested that Paul 
"should remember the poor," which very thing he 
was also zealous to do. Some half dozen years 
later Paul began that splendid collection among 
the Gentile churches (in Macedonia, Corinth, 
Galatia, etc.) to relieve the sufferings of the poor 
saints in Judea. This collection shows the social- 
izing influence of early Christianity in two direc- 
tions : the cementing of the ties of brotherhood 
between Jews and Gentiles, and the recognition of 
brotherly relations between the rich and poor. 

Again, in that splendid letter to Philemon, Paul 
taught that Philemon, the master, was to regard 
Onesimus, the returned slave, "no longer as a 
bondservant, but more than a bondservant, a be- 
loved brother." Though Paul did not attack the 
institution of slavery as existing in the Roman 
Ernjrire, he did teach the brotherhood of even 
masters and slaves, and enjoined a conduct between 
them based on the principles of brotherhood and 
love. 

Even in the* sub- and post-apostolic ages the 
spirit of fraternity and equality taught by Chris- 
tian teachers after the example of Jesus and 
the apostles, permeated the institutions and soci- 
ety of the Eoman Empire, and although not strong 
enough to withstand the tides of inner corruption 



220 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

and the attacks of external foes, yet deferred the 
fall of the Eoman Empire and kept alive for future 
centuries a nucleus of Christian faith, love, and 
brotherhood, to quicken the forces of the Renais- 
sance and the Reformation. In the writings of 
the Apostolic Fathers, Clement of Rome, Bar- 
nabas, Ignatius, Polycarp, Hernias, et al., of the 
later Greek and Latin fathers, Justin, Tatian, 
Irenseus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, 
Origen, Cyprian, et al., we see expressed the social- 
izing power of Christianity in the early centuries ; 
the power of Christian love to harmonize the 
various races in the bonds of Christian brother- 
hood ; the power of the gospel to bring together in 
fraternity and equality, the rich and poor, rulers 
and subjects, learned and unlearned. 

Shortly after the closing of the Apostolic Age 
we find the amelioration of the conditions of 
Roman slavery beginning, according to Gibbon 
and Mommsen. The former especially concedes 
that the teachings of Christianity brought about a 
mitigation of the rigors of Roman slavery. "The 
Rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire still 
further improved the condition of the slave. The 
sentiments it created were not only favorable to 
the humane treatment of the class* in the present, 
but were the germs out of which its entire libera- 
tion was destined at a later period, in part, to arise. 
They (the church fathers) protested against the 
multiplication of slaves for motives of vanity in 
the houses of the great, against the gladiatorial 



Betterment of Social Conditions 221 

combats (ultimately abolished by the noble self- 
devotion of a monk), and against the consignment 
of slaves to the theatrical profession which was 
often a school of corruption. The church also 
encouraged the emancipation of individual slaves 
and the redemption of captives; and its influence 
is to be seen in the legislation of the Christian 
emperors, which softens some of the hardest 
features that still marked the institution." 5 

Gibbon also admits for the early years of Chris- 
tianity, "The general uses to which their liberality 
was applied reflected honor on the religious 
society. A decent portion was reserved for the 
maintenance of the bishop and his clergy. A 
sufficient sum was allotted for the expenses of the 
public worship. . . . The whole remainder 
was the sacred patrimony of the poor. According 
to the discretion of the bishop, it was distributed 
to support widows and orphans, the lame, sick, 
and the aged, of the community; to comfort 
strangers and pilgrims, and to alleviate the mis- 
fortunes of prisoners and captives, more especially 
when their sufferings had been occasioned by their 
firm attachment to the cause of religion. A gen- 
erous intercourse of charity united the most dis- 
tant provinces, and the smaller congregations 
were cheerfully assisted by the arms of their more 
opulent brethren." 6 



5 J. K. Ingram, Ency. Brit., ed. IX, Article, Slavery. 

6 Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 
Vol. I. 



222 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

This reads like an excerpt from a modern jour- 
nal of missions or sociology. It is to be noted that 
these concessions come from a scientific historian 
who is hostile to Christianity. He further admits 
that Christians "rescued from death and educated" 
infants exposed by their parents according to the 
inhuman practices of the time. Other social ben- 
efits, such as the betterment of the conditions of 
women, prisoners, etc., were evidently the natural 
results of early Christian teachings on loye and 
human brotherhood. As claimed by the enemies 
of early Christianity and not denied by the early 
apologists, it may justly be asserted that the 
churches in the early centuries, though numbering 
a few philosophers like Justin and Aristides, a few 
learned men like Clement of Alexandria and 
Origen, and some rich men and a few men of polit 
ical power like Constantine and other emperors, 
yet in the main, were composed "of the dregs of the 
populace, of peasants and mechanics, of boys and 
women, of beggars and slaves." 7 

III. What should be the relation of Christian 
teachers to modern social conditions? 

1. They must not forget that their primary 
business is to teach men religion. They must 
teach an ethic that is based on religion. Jesus 
taught first the fatherhood of God, and on it based 
the brotherhood of man. Modern Christian teach- 
ers must do likewise. Paul also based his ethical 
teachings on the teachings concerning the right- 



ed i l)bon, as above. 



Betterment of Soeial Conditions 223 

eousness, grace, and love of God. "I beseech you 
therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to pre- 
sent your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable 
to God, which is your rational service." He like- 
wise builds his moral teachings in the letters to 
the Corinthians, Ephesians, Philippians and Colos- 
sians on theological truths and religious expe- 
riences. 

Modern Christian teachers must teach that the 
social, intellectual, economic, and religious salva- 
tion of society depends on the spiritual and moral 
salvation of the individual. "Christianity has an 
ancient doctrine of regeneration. It teaches that 
we can enter into life only when the Spirit of God 
works upon our natural impulses so as to trans- 
form the springs of desire and conduct and make 
them Christly. This doctrine, too, is securing 
new meaning, but not becoming abandoned. Is 
the new heart necessary to social regeneration? 
Ask the social psychologist; he will tell you of 
an inner conflict and of a reorganization of self as 
a social self. Ask the experienced social worker. 
. . . He will tell you that the renewal of the 
heart is essential to social regeneration. Edu- 
cators know it, and the more thoughtful of them 
are asking themselves how the schools can more 
effectively promote the necessary reorganization 
of the self of the pugil." 8 Dean Shailer Mathews 



8 Geo. A. Coe, Christianity and Social Ideals, Homilctic 
Review, February, 1910, 



224 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

truly says, "It is the evangelization of the spiritual 
life which lies below all social uplift." 9 

2. All economic, social, and cultural improve- 
ments in the community, state, and nation, should 
be encouraged by all preachers of the gospel, evan- 
gelists, professors in colleges, universities, and 
seminaries, pastors or ministerial leaders in any 
position, Sunday School teachers, and all Christian 
teachers in all kinds of schools. All these teachers 
should teach that Christianity is a social religion, 
and that it stands for the betterment of men's 
economic, social, moral, and cultural conditions. 
This will give Christianity its rightful place in the 
estimate of working men, as well as of all thinking 
men. Yet, no Christian can afford to stand for a 
social salvation that does not root itself in the 
spiritual and moral salvation of the individual. 
The church is not a social or cultural club. It 
must not be made so. Yet it must show the world 
that its principles of love and service help all men 
to be better, act better, and live better in every 
desirable sphere of human life and society. 

3. The Preacher's Place in the Realization of 
Better Social Conditions : 

(a) He must preach, first, individual salvation 
in Christ as the only solid hope of any social sal- 
vation. 

(b) He should preach those simple, yet sublime, 



9 The Christian Minister and the Social Order, Yale 
Lectures on Pastoral Functions, 1008-0. 



Betterment of Social Conditions 225 

principles of Jesus and Paul, John and James — 
love and brotherhood, service and sacrifice. 

(c) He should strive to enlist his rich members 
in social activity, building and supporting public 
parks, children's playgrounds, homes for the de- 
fective (deaf, dumb, and blind), for the aged and 
incurable, orphans and widows, sanitariums, etc. 

(d) He should seek to make sentiment among 
the people to secure legislation against monop- 
olies and trusts that favor the rich and crush the 
poor; against child labor and woman labor in 
factories ; against saloons and the liquor business ; 
against brothels and gambling; against discrim- 
ination against women in the economic world, etc., 
etc. 

4. The Place of Sunday School Teachers in the 
Sociological Movements of Today. 

They should teach in their private classes the 
same great principle the pastor preaches in the 
pulpit — namely, individual salvation in Christ, 
love and brotherhood, service and sacrifice in the 
promotion of the Christian life and the regenera- 
tion of society. 

It is only by thus teaching by all Christian 
teachers, from those in seminaries, colleges and 
universities to those in the pulpit, Sunday School 
and the home, that we can hope to give the world 
the true social principles according to which the 
problems of modern society can and must be 
solved. 

—15— 



226 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Bauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social 
Crisis. 

Peabody, Jesus Christ and the Social Question. 

Peabody, The Approach to the Social Question. 

J. H. Moulton, The Social Teaching of the Bible. 

Shailer Mathews, The Social Gospel. 

Henderson, Social Duties from the Christian 
Point of View. 

Spargo ? The Substance of Socialism. 



Evangelization of the World 227 



CHAPTER XVI 

The Christian Teacher's Contribution to the 
Evangelization op the World 

Recently Bishop Taylor Smith, chaplain of the 
British Army, said that the church's chief needs 
of today are, "to know, to grow, to glow, to go." 
The last word, "go," expresses the ultimate end for 
which Christianity was founded and for which 
each Christian is saved. But the going depends 
on knowing, growing, and glowing. Still further 
it should be said growing and glowing depend on 
knowing. So we can trace back to the teacher's 
function all the processes of Christian culture and 
Christian activity. 

According to the teachings of Paul we have a 
division of labor in the religious operations of the 
churches. He speaks in Romans 12 and Ephesians 
4 of the various functions in the "one body," and 
among them is "teaching." Here we wish to 
remind every Christian teacher that he is an 
organic part of the great world forces of Chris- 
tianity; that he is the basal functionary in the 
long line of forces and processes of world evangel- 
ization. The Christian teacher is one of the 
engines, a head and heart engine, creating, under 
God, spiritual and moral energy to be expended in' 
missionaries at the front on the "far-flung battle 



228 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

line." The Christian teacher who teaches mathe- 
matics is not a real Christian teacher unless he 
contributes some moral and spiritual energy to 
lift the world to Christ and God. He who teaches 
the laws and forces of nature is not a genuine 
Christian teacher unless he is producing character 
forces that make for spiritual living, whose aim 
and result are the wheeling of the world into the 
orbit of Divine purposes of redemption in Christ 
and the drawing of the world under the gravita- 
tion of Divine grace and love. 

i. some presuppositions to be taken for granted 
by all christian teachers 

1. The Supremacy of Christianity Over All 
Ethnic Keligions 

The study of Comparative Eeligion is a rela- 
tively recent science, but is commanding a large 
attention in modern universities and seminaries. 
Men are studying the origin, development, nature, 
successes, and failures of the various religions, 
from the lowest animistic religion to the purest 
monotheism of Judaism and Christianity. Some 
conservative Christians are reluctant to make the 
comparison. But we have nothing to lose by a 
comparative study of the religions of the world. 
The sun, the center of the solar system, loses noth- 
ing from a careful comparison with the moon, 
Venus, and Mars, which shine with borrowed light 
from the sun. So with a thorough comparison of 



Evangelization of the World 229 

Christianity with the ethnic religions, Christianity 
does not lose any of its lustre or glory. 

(7. In the person of its Founder, Christianity 
excels the world religions. Jesus shines forth 
with a surpassing heavenly glory when you place 
beside Him Confucius, Gautama, or Mahomet. 
"If the life and death of Socrates were the life and 
death of a sage, the life and death of Jesus were 
those of a God." So wrote Rousseau, the French 
skeptic. "Christ was the temple of God, because 
in Him God most fully revealed Himself." So 
wrote Spinoza, the philosopher. "In the gospels 
there is the effectual reflection of a sublimity 
which emanated from the person of Christ; and 
this is as divine as ever the divine has appeared 
on earth." So felt Goethe, the German skeptical 
author. "Higher has the human thought not yet 
reached," wrote Carlyle of Jesus. "There is God 
within the heart of this youth" (Jesus), is the 
concession of Theodore Parker, the New England 
theologian. And the fanciful, critical Eenan of 
France wrote : "Whatever may be the surprises of 
future years, Jesus will never be surpassed." 

Such a character, as universally conceded, is the 
Jesus who founded Christianity. 

b. In its Sacred Literature Christianity is the 
superior religion. 

The Vedas, the sacred literature of the Hindus, 
are composed (1) of Sanhitas, collections of 
hymns, which are sometimes historical, but usually 
religious verses of glorification to various divin- 



230 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

ities, though sometimes mere sacriflcal formulas 
or liturgical chants. (2) The Brahmanas, teach- 
ings of the priests added to the original "mantras," 
or hymns, of the Sanhita collection and considered 
as of equal weight with the original hymns of the 
Vedas. (3) The Aranyakas and Upanishads, fur- 
ther developments of the religious teachers, cor- 
responding to the Scribal hedge about the Old 
Testament, the traditions of the elders. (4) The 
"Sutras," or rulers, mere catch phrases adopted 
by the religious teachers to aid in handing down 
the sacred teachings to their pupils. Thus we 
find the Vedas, produced between 2,000 and 1,500 
B.C., the age of Abraham to Moses, to be a dis- 
jointed compilation of religious hymns, priestly 
expositions, sacrificial formulas and liturgical 
chants. 

Confucianism has its sacred literature in the 
writings, or compilations, of Confucius. But 
what are these productions? Merely a compila- 
tion of maxims from the Chinese sages and princes 
of past centuries, which give us some specific rules 
about domestic, social, and moral living. "Bee- 
iprocity" is the keyword of the sacred writings of 
Confucius. It means, "Befrain from doing to 
others the evil you would not have them do to 
you." This is only a negative golden rule for 
moral living. It is the highest thought expressed 
in all the writings of Confucius. 

The Zend-Avesta, constituting the sacred books 
of Zoroastrianism, is a disjointed compilation (1) 



Evangelization of the World 231 

of the Yasna, a collection of liturgical fragments 
and hymns, which are simply select verses from the 
sermons of Zoroaster. (2) The Vispered, another 
liturgical fragment. (3) The Vendidad, a collec- 
tion of religious laws, similar to but much inferior 
to our Pentateuch. (4) The Yashts, a collection 
of fragmentary myths devoted to various divin- 
ities. (5) A collection of various kinds of prayers 
and six other heterogeneous fragments. The 
prayers do not breathe a devotion and aspiration 
spiritual and sublime like the prayers of our 
sacred Psalter. So we see the whole Bible of 
Parseeism is a compilation of heterogeneous frag- 
ments, myths, liturgies, hymns, laws, and prayers, 
supposed to have been collected in their final form 
in the fourth century A.D. 

The Koran, the Bible of Islam, a book of 114 
suras, or divisions, some short, some long, the 
former usually theological in nature and purport- 
ing to have been originally delivered by Mahomet 
(at Mecca in the early period, as most scholars 
think), the latter dealing with social relations and 
duties, and thought to have been delivered by 
Mahomet in the later period at Medina. All these 
addresses are regarded by Mahometans as revela- 
tions of the one God to Mahomet His prophet. 
The Koran was at first handed down by oral tradi- 
tion, but about a generation after the death of 
Mahomet it was committed to writing by Zeid, an 
amanuensis of Mahomet, under the command of 
Abu Bekr, the successor of the prophet. "The 



232 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

Koran is largely drawn from Jewish and Christian 
sources." This is the verdict of the best scholars. 
Its doctrine of One Sovereign God to whom man 
owes absolute subjection (Islam) is borrowed 
from the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. It 
regards Moses and Jesus as prophets of the One 
God. It weaves into its narratives many rabbin- 
ical legends without discrimination. It \tas 
written and published about 670-675 A.D. 

Now compare with these four Bibles of the 
ethnic religions our Christian Bible. It has one 
tlieme, the coming of the Divine into human char- 
acter, conduct, and life through redeeming love 
and saving grace. It is a unit, not a compilation 
of fragments, though composed by about forty 
different authors of various stations in life, from 
kings to peasants and fishermen, during a period 
of several centuries. Its style is easy, simple and 
sublime. Carlyle said that the book of Job is the 
most splendid piece of literature ever produced. 
Euskin often said that his memorizing of whole 
chapters in the Bible when a boy did more to 
make his English style than all other forces com- 
bined. Dr. C. C. Alfonso Smith, University of 
North Carolina, says: "The Bible is a part of 
world-literature. The Koran is literature, but 
the Bible is a literature. With the exception of 
the novel and the editorial, both of which arose in 
the eighteenth century, there is hardly a type of 
modern literature or form of modern discourse 
that may not be found in the Bible. Throughout 



Evangelization of the World 233 

your college course you will come in contact with 
no book whose purely literary claims equal those 
of the Bible. I yield to no one in my admiration 
of the classical literatures, of the modern litera- 
tures, and of the more technical literature of scien- 
tific achievement. But in vividness and intensity, 
in elevation of appeal, in the extent of her literary 
empire, and in the duration of her sovereignty, the 
Bible takes easy and secure precedence." 

Jtilicher says : "This portion of universal litera- 
ture is the most influential book that ever existed." 
Harnack also says, respecting the Bible: "It is 
enough to reflect upon the Bible as the book of the 
ancient world, the book of the Middle Ages, and — 
though not perhaps in the market place — the book 
of modern times. Where does Homer stand com- 
pared with the Bible? Where the Vedas or the 
Koran? The Bible is inexhaustible. Each suc- 
ceeding period has revealed some new aspect of it." 
Its Old Testament paves the way for the New 
Testament. In the Old we have simpler social, 
moral, and religious teachings for simpler and 
ruder forms of society. Its prophecies teach right 
living, living in accord with the will of God and 
for the promotion of social welfare. Both indi- 
vidualism and altruism find expression in the 
prophets and psalmists. In Jesus and Paul and 
John the social note is clear, though the worth of 
the individual receives its finest expression in the 
teaching of Jesus : "What doth it profit a man, 

to gain the Avhole world and forfeit his life"? 

(Mark 8: 36). 



234 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

Love, as the highest principle for the regulation 
of society, and a splendid optimism for the future 
in this age and even that to come, shine like the 
polar star in the teachings of Jesus and the writ- 
ings of Paul and John. The four great Bibles of 
the East in all these respects fall far below the 
Christian Bible. 

c. In its system of religious and ethical teach- 
ings Christianity far surpasses the ethnic religions. 

Only one teaches a pure monotheism, namely, 
Mahometanism. In the other religions only athe- 
ism, or polytheism, or pantheism, can be seen. 

Nor is there so complete a teaching on man and 
his real moral state and spiritual worth. Lao-tse 
was morbid in his declaration that man was 
irremedially bad in nature and life, while Confu- 
cius was deluded into hoping that man by mere 
ethical teaching, without religious teaching and 
worship, could rise to the highest culture and 
moral achievement. In the Persian, Hindu, and 
Arabian religions we find, especially in the first 
two, some sense of human sinfulness and the 
necessity of sacrifices to atone for sin and propi- 
tiate the gods. But only in Christianity is there 
a sublime doctrine of Divine love, stooping to save 
man from sin and its consequences through the 
death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of 
God. In the Hindu religion occurs the idea of 
incarnation, though rude and multifarious, but 
only in Christianity is there an elevated single 
incarnation, in which the Divine becomes a man, 



Evangelization of the World 235 

to lift the human into the realization of the Divine, 
in character, life, and conduct. 

As to the future, Confucius was silent, Zoroaster 
was hazy, and Gautama taught that Nirvana 
(either entire extinction of being, 01* continued 
existence in a shadowy semi-consciousness) was 
the desired goal of human hope. But Jesus and 
Paul and John looked beyond and through the veil 
that hangs over the present and saw a consum- 
mated kingdom of love and glory in which the lov- 
ing and serving shall "shine forth as the sun," 
"shall know as also they are known," and "shall be 
like Him, because they shall see Him as He is." 

d. Christianity alone offers a real Saviour from 
sin and suffering. 

Neither Zoroaster, Confucius, Guatama, nor 
Mahomet claimed to save men from evil. Only 
Jesus claimed to save and only Jesus saves, accord- 
ing to the experience of millions who have trusted 
their souls and lives to Him. A young Brahman 
of culture, converted to Christianity, was asked 
by the missionary to read the New Testament 
carefully and then tell him the chief difference 
between Brahmanism and Christianity. Having 
finished the New Testament, the educated Brah- 
man convert, glowing with the love and hope of a 
new life, replied: "Christianity has a Saviour, 
Brahmanism has none." No Christian teacher 
should ever lose sight of this fact. Our religion 
offers the only hope of a real Saviour from sin. 

e. Christianity has the highest code of ethics 
and produces the purest moral living. 



236 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

Confucius taught the negative golden rule, but 
Jesus, the positive golden rule. Gautama taught 
self-renunciation, but not to gain a higher self in 
service and sacrifice, as Jesus taught. Confucius, 
Lao-tse, Gautama, Mahomet, and many of their 
followers, have lived exalted lives, but none of 
them can compare with Jesus and Paul and John, 
with Polycarp and Ignatius and Justin, with Huss 
and Payton and Yates, who crucified self to serve 
others, who buried themselves beneath a world of 
debris, in order to lift their suffering lost fellows 
from the muck of sinful hate and gloom into the 
life and sunshine of love and brotherhood. 

/. Christianity has produced the only progress- 
ive cosmopolitan civilization. 

No other religion in the world has adapted itself 
to the note of scientific progress. Confucianism 
was built on the pillars of the past and refused to 
look to the greater lights of the future. So did 
the Hindu, the Persian, and Arabian religions. 

2. World-wide Evangelization the Chief Busi- 
ness of All Christians 

John E. Mott says : "The primary work of the 
church is to make Jesus Christ known and obeyed 
and loved throughout the world." 

a. This logically follows from the preceding pre- 
supposition. If Christianity is the supreme 
religion, if it offers the only Saviour and the high- 
est ethics, if it produces the noblest moral living 
and the best and most progressive civilization, it 



Evangelization of the World 237 

logically follows that Christians are bound by 
moral ties, to say nothing of the higher religious 
ties and the special command of Jesus, to give this 
priceless treasure of the kingdom to those who 
have it not but need it above all things else. - We 
should be more faithful than Mahometans to carry 
out the spirit of the words of Caliph Abu Bekr: 
"Leave not off to fight in the ways of the Lord; 
whosoever leaveth off, him verily shall the Lord 
abase." This is interpreted by every follower of 
Islam to mean that every Mahometan, whether 
merchant, or traveler, or whatever business he 
pursues, is bound to represent the prophet to the 
ends of the earth. If Christianity is superior to 
all other religions, does it not logically follow that 
every Christian, whether preacher, teacher, or 
layman, is under obligation to carry the truth of 
Christianity to all the nations? In many medical 
colleges this solemn charge is delivered to the 
young graduates : "If you discover any medical 
principle or any remedy for human disease hitherto 
unknown, make it known at once, in order to ad- 
vance the science of medicine and relieve the pain 
of human kind." So every Christian teacher, 
who knows the highest religious and ethical teach- 
ings, is under moral obligations to make them 
known to the ends of the earth. 

6. Jesus taught a world-wide missionary cam- 
paign. 

"Go . . . make disciples of all nations, etc." 
(Matt. 28: 18-20). Even if we should have to 



238 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

reject this passage from the number of the actual 
sayings of Jesus (against which I think the evi- 
dence stands), as some New Testament scholars 
would demand, we must admit that the disciple 
who is claimed to have written these matchless 
words later, must have caught the idea and spirit 
of such a cosmopolitan campaign from Jesus 
Himself. 

c. Paul taught the same cosmopolitan plan of 
missions. 

He felt that if all men, gentiles as well as Jews, 
can be saved by grace through faith in Jesus 
Christ without the deeds of the law, this message 
ought to be proclaimed to all men, for it is "the 
power of God unto salvation to every one that 
believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek" 
(Bom. 1: 16). Notice in the Greek Testament 
that the sentence, "I am debtor," is a conclusion 
from 1: 16, the latter being connected to the 
former with the particle "for" which expresses the 
ground of the preceding proposition. (So Winer, 
Buttman, Blass, and other standard grammarians 
of the Greek New Testament.) 

II. CHRISTIAN TEACHING IN CHRISTIAN LANDS 
SHOULD RESULT IN RECRUITS TO THE COS- 
MOPOLITAN MISSIONARY CAMPAIGN 

The ancient Spartan mothers taught their sons 
to love their country, and when they came home 
from battle to come as victors or corpses. As a 
result Leonidas stood at Thermopylae and fought, 



Evangelization of the World 239 

with three hundred Spartans, the millions of 
Xerxes' soldiers. If fathers and mothers and 
Sunday School teachers will teach their children 
and pupils that Christianity is a world religion, 
that the world needs it and must have it to save it, 
spiritually, morally, socially, and intellectually, 
and that our Christian boys and girls ought to be 
volunteers for service in the King's campaign for 
world-wide conquest, thousands of them would 
respond, "Here am I, send me, send me." Alex- 
ander Duff led the convention of a Mission Board 
to adopt the following resolution : "This conven- 
tion cherishes a deep conviction, that in order to 
the multiplication of suitable agents for the 
heathen mission field, ministers of the gospel must 
strive ... to stamp vivid impressions on the 
minds of church members, and especially Christian 
parents, Sabbath School and other Christian 
teachers ... to realize the magnitude and glory 
of the work of the world's evangelization, and lead 
them to consider personal dedication to the work 
as the highest of duties and noblest of privileges." 1 
Yea, our Christian teachers in colleges and uni- 
versities can and should impress their Christian 
students with the necessity, dignity, and duty of 
evangelizing the world. It is a fact that nearly 
all our missionaries now on the foreign field were 
trained in some Christian college or university 
and there received, if not their first impressions 



1 John R. Mott, The Pastor and Modern Missions, 
p. 149. 



240 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

to be missionaries, an impetus to altruistic service 
and world conquest and equipment for that service. 

The Students' Volunteer Movement, originated 
and led by John R. Mott, by its campaigns and 
conventions for evangelistic education, has been 
the human agent in inducing 4,346 trained and 
competent men and women to offer themselves, 
since 1886, as foreign missionaries. 2 This move- 
ment is one of the most far-reaching educational 
missionary movements of modern times. 

Our seminaries of all denominations are now 
putting special emphasis upon cosmopolitan mis- 
sions. Some seminaries have missionary training 
schools for the training of young women who feel 
called to devote themselves to missionary work. 

The whole teaching force of Christianity, from 
the teacher in the seminary, college, and university 
to the pastor, Sunday School teacher, and Chris- 
tian parents in the home, should combine to teach 
the necessity, dignity, and duty of world-wide 
evangelization, till the missionary spirit shall 
dominate all thinking, planning, and living, among 
all Christian sects, as it once did among the 
Moravians. It is said that Count Zinzendorf 
asked one of his brethren one day if he could be 
ready to start the next day for Greenland. The 
man replied, "If the shoemaker can furnish the 
boots that I have ordered by tomorrow, I will go." 
That is the missionary spirit and readiness for 



2 See Missionary Review of the World, April, 1910, for 
the distribution of these missionaries. 



Evangelization of the World 241 

world evangeliation. It was the result of mis- 
sionary education by Zinzendorf and his corps of 
teachers. 

III. THE CHRISTIAN SCHOOL IN HEATHEN LANDS AS 
A METHOD OF EVANGELIZATION 

We would not derogate from the glory of the 
preached word. The pulpit will ever be a mighty 
means of evangelization, not only at home, but in 
heathen lands. But it brings, as I have been in- 
formed by returned missionaries, the least actual 
results of all the methods now in use in the various 
mission stations. The preacher draws the crowd 
and gets the first attention of many heathen 
passers-by. But the teacher must teach the 
awakened heathen for weeks, and even months and 
years sometimes, before they are ready to relin- 
quish their old religion and accept Jesus Christ as 
the world's teacher, their Saviour and Lord. 

Medical Missions, established about a genera- 
tion ago, but not much emphasized till the close 
of the nineteenth and the opening of the twentieth 
centuries, are working wonders among all denom- 
inations that have sent out medical missionaries. 
Our Christian sanitariums in heathen lands heal 
the body and mind of thousands, and while they 
are in the sanitarium the Christian teacher tells 
them of Jesus' love and power to heal the soul. 

Likewise, our publication societies in heathen 
lands are scattering Christian literature whose 
pages become leaves for the healing of thousands. 
—16— 



242 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

But to iny mind the mightiest engine for lifting 
the world to Christ and the Christian religion is 
the Christian schools in heathen lands. The 
teacher in one of these schools, if he feels the mag- 
nitude of his obligation and opportunity, seeks to 
impart Christian ideas and ideals to the young, 
and though their inheritance has been non-Chris- 
tian, a Christian environment and Christian 
culture can overcome the non-Christian hereditary 
proclivities. This is the glory of the Christian 
school. It employs two of the mightiest forces 
in God's world, good environment and true cul- 
ture, to undo, under God, the evil contracted by 
heredity and practice, and to mould a new charac- 
ter, life, and career in each boy and girl so edu- 
cated and trained. Of course, this work of Chris- 
tian education and culture must presuppose spirit- 
ual transformations wrought by God. But God 
works through the instrumentality of Christian 
ideas and ideals which are formed by a knowledge 
of His truth. 

Christian missionaries have achieved a phenom- 
enal success considering the conditions of the 
heathen nations. But our missionaries abroad 
and church leaders at home are being convinced 
that we cannot effectively Christianize the heathen 
nations except through the Christian schools. 
The patient teaching of the Christian teacher, five 
days in the week, both by precept and example, is 
the mightiest engine of power to turn the world to 
Christ and the Christ life. The aged heathen 



Evangelization of the World 243 

love their native religion. Only a few of them 
are feeling for the higher life, something better 
than they have, and are ready to receive the Chris- 
tian message of love and life. 

All denominations (the Roman Catholics learned 
it long ago) are now building Christian schools in 
all their central stations. In these, Christian 
teachers, foreigners and natives, are teaching from 
the Christian point of view. They are teaching 
language and literature, the sciences and the arts, 
but along with these are instilling into the minds 
of growing heathen youth the teachings of Jesus. 

Professor Burton, University of Chicago, who 
has recently made a tour of the Orient to study 
educational conditions, says concerning India : 
"Despite these handicaps, missionary schools have 
increased in number and efficiency. There are 
today forty-six colleges conducted by foreign 
missionary societies, some two hundred and sixty 
secondary schools, besides large numbers of ele- 
mentary schools. . . . One hundred and sixty- 
nine thousand young people from the Indian 
Christian community are in the schools. Rela- 
tively . . . over four times as many Christians 
are in school as Hindus. Of the wisdom of the 
educational policy there is no longer any doubt on 
the part of the missionaries. Experience has 
abundantly proved that those bodies which have 
given large attention to education have achieved 
the largest results, while every board which has 



244 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

yielded to anti-educational sentiment has had 
reason most seriously to regret it. 3 

SOME CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS ABROAD 

The Congregationalists have seventeen full col- 
leges in their various fields, the greatest of which 
are The Doshisha, Japan; The North China Col- 
lege, Tung-Chow; one in Peking; in Turkey, 
Bobert College, and five others, at Tarus, Ain Tob, 
Marsovan, Harpoot, and Miss Patrick's large Girls' 
College in Constantinople. 

The Methodists have strong colleges in Japan at 
Tokio, Nagasaki, and at Kobe ; in China, at Shang- 
hai, Nanking, Peking, Fuchow; in India, at 
Serampore, a theological seminary at Lucknow; 
at various points in South America and Mexico; 
a few high schools in Burma and the Philippines. 
The Southern Methodists have a college at Kobe, 
Japan, at Shanghai and Soochow, in China. 

The Presbyterians have good colleges,: in Japan, 
at Tokio; in China, at Peking, Santung, Ningpo, 
and Canton; in India, at Lahoro, Allahabad, and 
at several other stations. The American Presby- 
terians have a great college at Beirut with 800 
students; a college also in Persia. The United 
Presbyterians have two great schools in Egypt, at 
Cairo and Assiout. The Southern Presbyterians 
have schools at Kobe, Japan ; at Shanghai and 
Soochow, China. 



*The American Journal of Theology, April, 1910. 



Evangelization of the World 245 

The American Episcopalians have St. Paul's 
College, at Tokio, Japan; in China, St. John's 
College at Shanghai, Boone College at Wuchang. 
The London and other English Societies have 
strong schools in the leading centers of China, 
Madagascar, New Zealand, and in the South Sea 
Islands. 

The Dutch Eeformed have colleges in Japan at 
Sendai and Nagasaki; in China, at Amoy; in 
India, in the Arcot Mission. 

The Lutherans have a great school at Gunter, 
India, and the German Lutheran Societies have 
colleges in South Africa, Sumatra, and New 
Guinea. 

The Baptists have in Burmah the Eangoon Bap- 
tist College, the Theological Seminary at Issein, 
the Ko-thah-byu Memorial College at Bassein, 
about thirty-five high schools in leading centers, 
and hundreds of village schools; in South India 
the Ongole College, the Bamapatam Seminary, 
and a score of high schools; several schools in 
Assam; in China, Shanghai College (under aus- 
pices of Northern and Southern Baptists), a union 
school at Chentu, West China; academies and 
high schools at Hangchow, Ningpo, Swatow, Can- 
ton, Shantung; elementary schools for boys and 
girls at most stations; the Graves Theological 
Seminary, Canton (under auspices of Southern 
Baptists), and the Ya; in Japan, Duncan College 
at Tokio, and a theological seminary at Yoko- 
hama; girls' academies at Tokio, Yokohama, 



246 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

Himeji, Osaka, Sendai; in the Philippines, at 
Iloilo; in Africa, the Congo Theological School 
and many village schools; in Brazil and Argen- 
tian, theological and other schools ; at Rio, Bahia, 
Pernarabueo, Buenos Aires (Southern Baptists) ; 
in Mexico, schools at Torreon, Guadalajara, and 
at other stations (under Southern Baptists). 4 

THE EVANGELIZING INFLUENCE OP MISSION SCHOOLS 

1. The elementary schools start with the boys 
and girls and instil into their minds and hearts a 
knowledge of Christ and the Christian Religion. 

2. The girls' schools are training mothers for 
the next generation, who will begin to make 
Christian homes in heathen lands. 

3. The various Christian colleges are turning 
out Christian teachers and leaders in the various 
walks of life who will teach and lead the natives, 
more or less under the influence of Christian ideas. 

4. The theological seminaries are training 
native pastors, evangelists, teachers, and leaders, 
to evangelize the natives, organize them into 
churches and train them in Christian living. 

5. The mission schools, in putting emphasis 
upon the education of women, are elevating women 
to their rightful place in society. 



4 For the above facts we are indebted largely to Dr. 
H. C. Mabie, who has made two extended tours on 
various mission fields; also to the Missionary Rcritic 
of the World, various tables and articles. 



Evangelization of the World 247 

6. Christian schools in heathen lands are creat- 
ing an impetus for Western education, and in 
many lands, especially in China, Japan, and India, 
the governments are establishing colleges and uni- 
versities in which Christian ideas will be mighty, 
if not dominant. 

7. The teachings of Christianity in mission 
schools are leading heathen peoples to build hos- 
pitals, asylums, and other eleemosynary institu- 
tions for the relief of the suffering and unfor- 
tunate. 

A Chinense student in this country, trying to 
account for the marvelous changes in the elevation 
of China, says : 5 "If you will ask this question of 
any Chinese, Christian or non-Christian, if he has 
ever taken pains to study the facts, he will tell 
you that it is the enlightenment of the people that 
has helped these changes. Who are the agents 
who have brought this enlightenment ? When we 
examine into this we find that it is the mission- 
aries. Pick out any leader that you can now in 
China in any of the new movements, and examine 
into his life. Where did he get this new spirit 
and education? You will find, in nine cases out 
of ten — yea, in ninety-nine cases out of one hun- 
dred — that he got his new spirit and education 
from mission schools, directly or indirectly." 

This is true of Dr. Sun Yat Sen, trained in 
Christian schools, w T ho imbibed democratic ideas 
and has become the chief agent in founding a 



5 Foreign Mission Journal, March, 1910. 



248 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

Republic in China. Who can measure the far- 
reaching results of a Republic in China, in the 
millions of souls to be saved, the thousands of 
churches to be organized, of sanitariums to be 
built, orphanages to be erected, homes elevated, 
morals purified, and society transformed by the 
teachings of Christ! And think of it. The 
Christian schools have silently created the forces 
and trained the men for building a Republic in 
China. And these Christian schools will continue 
to leaven and transform the civic, social, moral, 
and religious life of China. 

The same is true of Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, 
and other foreign lands. 

Dr. J. J. Taylor, Brazil, says : "There is perfect 
accord among us (missionaries) about the matter, 
although it took some years of experience to 
cement some of us to the conviction of the absolute 
necessity of educating our people" (the heathen). 

The Baptist General Convention of Texas, No- 
vember, 1911, unanimously passed a resolution 
expressing the conviction "that our Foreign Mis- 
sion Board should enlarge its educational equip- 
ment and push with increased energy its educa- 
tional work on all our mission fields, particularly 
in China, etc." The Southern Baptist Conven- 
tion at Jacksonville, Florida, May, 1911, resolved 
to undertake to raise as a "fitting celebration of 
the centennial year of American Baptist Foreign 
missions, f 1,000,000.00 as a special fund for edu- 
cational missions." 



Evangelization of the World 249 

The Presbyterians and Methodists have already 
undertaken similar campaigns to increase the 
facilities and efficiency of their mission schools. 
The denomination that builds the most and best 
schools in China within the next five years, equips 
them best with teachers, buildings, and modern 
appliances, will most strongly and permanently 
stamp its thought and life upon the institutions, 
thinking, morals, and religion of China. At least 
one thousand Christian colleges should be built in 
China in the next five or ten years. These would 
be mighty levers to lift the nation to Christ and 
Christian ideals. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Count Okuma, Fifty Years of New Japan (espe- 
cially the part on Christianity by Bishop Honda). 

E. W. Clement, Christianity in Modern Japan. 

Missionary Review of the World, April, 1910, 
the following articles : 

J. F. McFadyen, Professor in Hislop College, 
India, Present Position of Educational Missions 
in India. 

Nihal Singh, a native educated in a mission 
school, Native Keform Movements in India, Chris- 
tianity's Indirect Contribution to India's Social 
Eegeneration. 

Higher Education and Missions in India 
(Editorial). 

E. D. Burton, Work of the Missions in Educat- 
— *16— 



250 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

ing India, article in American Journal of Theol- 
ogy, April, 1910. 

J. E. Saunders, The Function of Christian Edu- 
cation in China (Th.M. thesis, Library of South- 
western Baptist Theological Seminary). 

The following general references may be helpful : 

Bobert E. Speer, Missions and Modern History. 

G. M. Grant, The Eeligions of the World in Eela- 
tion to Christianity. 

Harlan P. Beach, and others, Protestant Mis- 
sions in South America. 

Wm. Butler, Mexico in Transition. 

A. J. Brown, New Forces in Old China. 

J. Campbell Gibson, Mission Problems and 
Mission Methods in South China. 

Harlan P. Beach, India and Christian Oppor- 
tunity. 



APPENDIX 

(251) 



APPENDIX I 

The Noun Teacher as Applied to Jesus 

In the Synoptic Gospels the title teacher is applied to 
Jesus thirty-nine times — twelve times each in Mark and 
Matthew, and fifteen times in Luke. In John it is used 
six times. That is, forty-five times in the four gospels 
Jesus is called the teacher. 1 

In studying the above passages more closely we ob- 
serve that they can be divided into three classes : First, 
those in which Jesus is called the teacher by Himself — 
Matt. 10 : 24, 25 ; 23 : 8 ; Luke 6 : 40a, 40b ; John 13 : 14— 
six in all. Second, those in which He is called the 
teacher by the Twelve and His other followers or 
sympathizers — twenty-three in all, ten of which are 
cases in which the Twelve call Him the teacher. 2 
I have included in this class the case of the Scribe in 
Matthew 8 : 19f, whom Jesus told it was necessary to 
count the cost of discipleship before entering upon such 
a career of suffering and self-sacrifice. Also Matthew 
19: 2G (parallels Mark 10: 17, 20 and Luke 18: 18), the 
case of the rich young man who asked Jesus what he 
should do to inherit eternal life. He was not hostile to 
Jesus, even if he did not accept His terms of discipleship. 
Also Mark 5: 35 (parallel Luke 8: 40), where the serv- 
ants of Jairus call Jesus the teacher. Also Mark 9: 17, 
in which the father of the demoniac boy addresses Jesus 



1 This count is based on the Westcott and Hort text as 
seen in Moulton & Geden, Concordance to the Greek Tes- 
tament. 

2 Matt. 26: 18; Mark 4 : 38 ; 9 : 38 ; 10: 35; 13 : 1 ; 
14 : 14 ; Luke 21 : 7 ; 22 : 11 ; John 1 : 39 ; 13 : 13. 

(253) 



254 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

as teacher. Likewise (with much hesitation), Luke 7: 
40, the case of Simon the Pharisee, who invited Jesus to 
dine with him, and who addressed Jesus as teacher 
during the evening's conversation. Also Luke 9 : 38, the 
case of the father of the epileptic boy. 

Nicodemus ' ( John 3 : 2 ) , who was friendly to Jesus, 
and Martha (John 11: 28) called Him teacher. Mary 
Magdalene, after the resurrection (John 20: 16) called 
Jesus Rabboni, which John tells us means teacher. 

Third, those passages in which Jesus is called teacher 
by His enemies — Scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, Herod- 
ians, et al. They called Him the teacher in the follow- 
ing twelve passages : Matt, 9 : 11 ; 12 : 38 ; 17 : 24 ; 22 ; 
16 ; 24 : 36 ; Mark 12 : 14, 19, 32 ; Luke 11 : 45 ; 12 : ,13 ; 
19 : 39 ; 20 : 21, 28, 39. It is remarkable that in John's 
Gospel Jesus is not called teacher by His enemies, 
though once He calls Himself the teacher and five times 
the disciples do so. 

THE VEKB "TEACH" AS APPLIED TO JESUS 

The verb "teach" (didasJco) is referred to Jesus forty- 
five times' in the Gospels — thirty-nine in the Synoptists 
and six in John. These references are divided into four 
classes : 

1. Those in which the evangelist says Jesus taught or 
was teaching. Most of the references to Jesus' teaching 
belong to this class — of the nine in Matthew, seven 
passages ; 3 of the fifteen in Mark, thirteen passages ; 4 
of the fifteen in Luke, ten ; 5 of the six in John, four. 6 



3 Matt. 4: 23; 5:2; 7 : 29 ; 9: 35; 11 : 1 ; 13 : 54 
21 : 23. 

4 Mark 1 : 21, 22 ; 2 : 13 ; 4 : 1, 2 ; 6: 2, 6, 34; 8 : 31 
9 : 31 ; 10 : 1 ; 11 : 17 ; 12 : 35. 

6 Luke 4 : 15, 31 ; 5 : 3, 17 ; 6:6; 13 : 10, 22 ; 19 : 47 
20 : 1 ; 21 : 37. 

6 John 0: 59; 7 : 14, 28 ; 8 : 20. 



Appendix 255 

The Synoptists apply the verb "teach" to Jesus from 
the beginning of the Galilean ministry to the last week 
in Jerusalem. John uses it of him apparently only in 
the middle portion of His ministry (chapters G-8). 

2. Those passages in which Jesus speaks of Himself 
as teaching. These number only three — one in Matthew 
(26: 55), one in Mark (14: 49), in both of which He 
refers to His daily teaching in the temple during the last 
week of His ministry, and one in John (18: 20), where 
He says to the high priest, "I ever taught in synagogues 
and in the temple where all the Jews come together ; 
and in secret spake I nothing." He claims two things 
in this statement : First, that He was always a teacher — 
that is, during His public ministry ; second, that He 
was a public teacher, teaching nothing of which He or 
anyone should be ashamed. 

3. Seven passages in which His enemies speak of Him 
as teaching — in Matthew (22: 16), where the Pharisees 
and Herodians refer to His fearless, impartial teaching ; 
one in Mark (12: 14), parallel in Matt. 22: 16; four in 
Luke 13 : 26, where the rejected ones in the last day 
appeal to the fact that Jesus taught in their streets ; 
20 : 21a, 21b, and parallel in Mark 12 : 14 ; 23 : 5, where 
His accusers accuse Him of seditious teaching ; one in 
John 7 : 35, where His enemies ask if He was going to 
teach the Greeks when He went away. 

4. There is one passage in which the disciples apply 
the verb "teach" to Jesus — Luke 11 : 1, where they ask 
Him to teach them how to pray. 



256 Function of Teaching in Christianity 



APPENDIX II 

The Facts in the New Testament as to Paul the 
Teacher 

The noun "teacher" (didaskalos) is applied by Paul 
to himself only once (2 Tim. 1: 11). Though many 
critics deny the Pauline authorship of the Pastoral 
Epistles, they concede that this first section of 2 Timothy 
(1: 1-12) is Pauline. 1 Hence, we are justified, even 
from the hypercritical point of view, in using this passage 
as a source of Paul's teaching that he was a teacher 
with a Divine commission. 

Again, in Acts 13 : 1, the author ranks Paul among 
the teachers in Antioch. This is true, even if Paul be 
regarded primarily as a prophet in contradistinction with 
teacher technically interpreted. If he was one of the 
New Testament prophets he was at this same time a 
teacher, because all prophets are teachers, though not all 
teachers are prophets. Prophet is a generic, teacher a 
specific, term. 

The verb "teach" (didasko) is applied to Paul seven 
times in the book of Acts (11: 2G ; 15: 35; 18: 11; 20: 
20 ; 21 : 21 ; 21 : 28 ; 28 : 31). So we see the author of 
Acts esteemed Paul as an authoritative teacher. 

The verb "teach" (didasko) is also referred by Paul 
to himself four times in the epistles (1 Thess. 2 : 15 ; 1 
Cor. 4: 17; Col. 1 : 28 ; 2: 0, 7). 

CONCLUSIONS FROM NEW TESTAMENT FACTS 

1. Paul deemed himself a Divinely called teacher in a 
sense as real as he was a Divinely called apostle and 
preacher. 



'See McGiffert, Apostolic Age, p. 408. 



Appendix 257 

2. The author of the Acts, the beloved physician Luke, 
regarded him preeminently as a teacher, for he applies 
to him the verb "teach'' (didasko) seven times, while he 
calls him apostle (apostolos) only twice (Acts 14: 4, 4), 
and applies to him the verb "preach" (keerusso) only 
twice (Acts 20* 25; 28: 31); also the verb "preach" 
(katangeUo) only twice (Acts 13: 5; 17: 13); also the 
verb "bring good tidings" (euangelizomai) only three 
times (Acts 14: 7; 15: 35; 17: 18). 

3. As corroborating these New Testament facts, the 
numerous quotations in early Christian literature from 
Paul's Epistles and the frequent use of proof texts from 
Paul in elaborating the various systems of theology in 
the early Christian centuries. 



APPENDIX III 

References in New Testament to Other Teachers 

teachers in greece and the province of asia 

In 1 Cor. 12 : 28, Paul names a list of eight function- 
aries and functious, "apostles, prophets, teachers, et al." 
teachers being placed third in this list of eight. Eph. 4: 
11, he says the ascended Christ "gave some to be apostles, 
and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some 
pastors and teachers," placing teachers fifth, or last, in 
a list of five functionaries. The local environment in 
Corinth, accustomed to teachers of philosophy, demanded 
that more emphasis be put upon teaching than in Asia, 
where the prophet and evangelist were successful with- 
out special teaching. 

From the grammatical construction in \the above 
passages Paul seems to have regarded teachers {didas- 



258 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

l;aloi) as a separate class in Greece, but in Asia as iden- 
tical with pastors (poimenai). 



PAUL AND FEMALE TEACHERS 

"But I permit not a woman to teach" (didaskein). 
1 Tim. 2 : 12. "Let the women keep silence in the 
churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak 
(laleiti) ; hut let them he in subjection" (hupotases- 
thoaan). 1 Cor. 14: 34f. The main thought is the last 
expressed in the former passage — the subordination of 
women in the public mixed assembly. 1 Cor. 11 : 5f., a 
woman may "prophesy or pray" in the assembly, pro- 
vided she is "veiled." This only emphasizes the main 
thought in all this class of passages, viz. : the subordina- 
tion of women in the public functions of the church. 
She is not prohibited from prophesying, teaching, or 
praying, if she modestly keeps her place of subordination 
in the public administrations of the church. 

Cf. Acts 18: 26, where Priscilla privately taught the 
learned and eloquent Apollos, who afterwards became an 
able minister of the New Covenant. 

PAUL AND THE TEACHING PASTOR 

1 Tim. 3: 3, the apostle demands that the bishop 
(cpiskopos) be "apt to teach" (didakWcon). 2 Tim. 
2 : 2, the apostle insists that Timothy see to it that 
"faithful men" (no doubt, teaching pastors) be elected 
as bishops to "teach others also." 1 Tim. 5 : 17, he says 
that pastors who "rule well" and "especially labor in 
teaching" are "worthy of double honor." 

EVANGELISTS AS TEACHERS 

2 Tim. 2: 24, the apostle insists that Timothy, who is 
probably not a pastor, but an evangelist, be "apt to 
teach" {did alt lion, the same word as is used to desig- 
nate the pastor). 2 Tim. 4: 5, he expressly exhorts 



Appendix 259 

Timothy to "do the work of an evangelist." 1 Tim. 4 : 11, 
Paul explicitly exhorts Timothy, "These things exhort 
and teach" 

MISCELLANEOUS PASSAGES 

Acts 13 : 1, four others, Barnabas, Symeon, Lucius, 
Manaen, besides Paul, are called "prophets and teachers." 
Acts 18: 25, A polios is said to have "taught," but in 18: 
26 Priscilla and Aquila privately taught him (the verb 
"expound" [cktitheemai], not "teach" [didasko], being 
used), "the way of God more accurately." 

Heb. 5 : 12, the author implies that all Christians, 
after years of experience, "ought to be teachers." James 
3 : 1, James chides Jewish Christians for being ambitious 
for the honor of public Christian teachers. 



APPENDIX IV 

The word "preach, proclaim" (Jceerusso) occurs sixty- 
five times in the New Testament (twice, however, in the 
disputed passage, Mark 16 : 9-20) . Five times it refers 
to John the Baptist, eleven times to Jesus, seven times 
to the Twelve Apostles, nineteen times to Paul, once to 
an angel in heaven (Rev. 5:2), and twenty-two times to 
the general proclamation of the good tidings, by the 
leper, Philip, Timothy, and other preachers of the gospel. 
But the verb "teach" (didasJco) occurs ninety-three times 
in the New Testament, and in nearly all the cases refers 
to Christian teaching. 

The noun "preacher" {keerux) occurs only three times 
in the New Testament, twice referring to Paul and once 
to Noah. But the noun "teacher" (didaskalos) is used 
fifty-four times in the New Testament in the Christian 



260 Function of Teaching in Christianity 

sense. The noun "preaching" (Jceerugma) occurs only 
eight times in the New Testament, twice referring to the 
preaching of Jonah (that is, to the substance of his 
message to Nineveh), once to Jesus' message, four times 
to Paul's gospel, and once in a general sense, in which it 
signifies the substance of the gospel message (1 Cor. 1: 
21). But the noun "teaching," "doctrine" (didachee) 
occurs twenty-eight times in the Christian sense, ten 
times referring to Jesus' message, 4 times to that of the 
Twelve, six times to that of Paul, leaving eight miscel- 
laneous instances. 

These figures show that to preach the message of 
Christ and of the Apostles is regarded in the New Testa- 
ment as a significant function of Christian leaders. 
Although the terms "teacher," "teaching," and "teach" 
far outnumber the terms "preacher," "preaching," and 
"preach," yet the function of preaching occupies a con- 
spicuous place in the New Testament. 



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